NCP has apologised to  motorists who were trapped in a Bolton town centre car park after the card machine failed to process payments.

Rai Hurst was one of the drivers who had parked in Topp Way car park to go to church on June 9

But when he drove to the barrier to pay and get out, the card machine did not work.

He said soon after, more cars lined up  with motorists unable to pay as they did not have cash.

Rai said that on calling for assistance, drivers were told they could pay by phone but would need to pay a £5 surcharge.

Rai said: “Due to a road closure, I parked there for church that morning.

“They said there were no problems in the system but it was not working and they said that I would have to pay the surcharge, but it is not my issue.

“It was only £3, and I do not dispute that but I didn’t want to pay another £5 when I have done nothing wrong.

“I along with others including families with very young children were trapped and not allowed to leave.”

Rai said other drivers sat behind him had also tried but failed to pay with around 15-20 cars building up, all unable to pay and leave.

He said: “When I spoke to them for the third time, I said I just wanted to be let out and she said no you cannot leave until it is paid, and I said that I wanted to pay but you are not letting me.

“It was a horrible situation and as I walked past a line of cars, there were families and they were trapped, we all were.

“The customer service was abysmal, and they were horrible.”

NCP have since apologised for the confusion and will refund those asked to pay the £5 surcharge.

A spokesman said: "We have been informed that some customers have paid a surcharge of £5 on top of their parking costs whilst trying to exit our Topp Way car park on June 9.

"We can see from looking at our systems that there was a technical outage between midday and 1pm on that day, and so customers were unable to make payments whilst exiting the car park. 

"Although there were other methods of payment that were available for our customers, this site accepts cash payments as well as App payments.

"We feel it was incorrect to apply the surcharge as we can see there was a system fault which meant that customers were in a queue, and therefore it would have been harder to access the other payment methods without causing more delays. 

"We apologise that the surcharge was incorrectly applied on this occasion, and any customer who had the surcharge during midday and 2pm on June 9 at Topp Way is welcome to contact NCP and the surcharge will be refunded. 

"We apologise for any misunderstanding and frustration that this incident caused."

Rai said the negative experience would make him think twice before parking there again.

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He said: “I think they could have handled the situation a lot better than they did.

“I had no issue with paying £3 but the way they were talking to me and making us pay more just to leave.

“When I said this was unfair, the operator closed down our conversation.”

Rai eventually found cash to pay with but said everyone else was still there and could not get out.