SHOPPERS using a popular Wokingham town centre supermarket are being urged to check in, or face parking fines.
When the Aldi Elms Field store opened in the summer of 2019, it included parking cameras.
Signs in the car park warn customers that they can use it for 90 minutes, and only if they are shopping in store.
Other conditions include parking within marked bays, only using parent and toddler bays or disabled bays if needed and no parking on double yellow lines.
Anyone contravening those rules face a £70 fine, administered by a private parking company.
But the store’s proximity to Elms Field, including its play area and the new cinema, means that people had been bending the rules.
In a bid to ensure that shoppers have access to the car park, the company has implemented a new system where they have to register their car’s details after they have been through the checkouts.
Wokingham.Today understands that shoppers are being reminded to do so by cashiers.
And to ensure that the terminals used to log registration plates are covid-safe, the company has hand sanitisers available, and staff clean them on a regular basis.
When the Elms Field development was put in place, Wokingham Borough Council hoped that people would use the nearby Carnival multi-storey or Denmark Street car park, leaving Aldi’s space purely for customers of the supermarket, famous for its regular special buys.
An Aldi spokesperson said: “As is the case at many retail sites across the country, we have installed a number plate recognition system at our Wokingham store to ensure maximum availability of parking spaces for customers.”
