Tesco customers will have to spend £5 to park for two hours at busy store

It comes after councillors approved the new parking control measures to ease congestion at the supermarket giant’s car park at the St Stephen’s shopping mall in the city.

Tesco said Hull was one of nine sites in the country being used to trial new technology, after customers complained they were unable to find a place to park. They aim to have the new system running by next Thursday.

Automatic numberplate recognition cameras will be installed, which will capture cars entering the car park.

Customers who have paid the minimum £5 will get a parking voucher at the check out, with a barcode to issue free parking, which they will then have to validate at parking terminals.

If a customer overstays they will be sent a parking charge notice for £70, or £40 if paid within a fortnight. There will still be 30 minutes free car parking.

A Tesco spokesman said: “We welcome the committee’s decision as the new technology will help to free up spaces for customers and prevent the misuse of the car park, creating a smoother shopping trip. We’ll now work towards introducing the system later this month.”

Councillors spoke of their own problems getting a car parking space at this afternoon’s planning committee meeting.

Coun John Fareham said he sometimes had to drive around for 40 minutes because he couldn’t find a space. He said: “At the end of the day Tesco will either fail or succeed. It will either drive people away from car park in which case they will instantly drop it and go back to the old system. If it succeeds it will stay.”

And Coun Chris Sumpton said it was “perfectly reasonable” of Tesco to expect people to pay - but said maybe they should reconsider the £5 as Hull wasn’t the richest city.