MOTORISTS in Kirklees have shelled out £4.4m in parking charges in 12 months.

But it seems the days of scratching around for change for parking have been reduced.

More than 9,000 drivers paid their parking charges by mobile phone in just six months.

And more are signing up each week.

Kirklees Council introduced the PaybyPhone scheme back in April to ease the burden on motorists carrying cash and to make it more convenient.

And figures obtained by the Examiner in a Freedom of Information request show that in first six months, 7,992 motorists used the service in Huddersfield.

A further 331 motorists used the service in Holmfirth and 900 in Dewsbury.

Customers can pre-register prior to their first use of the system at https://paybyphone.co.uk/ or can simply set up an account the first time they want to use it.

Each car park has a unique reference number which is used to determine the tariff and users can still select duration.

They are also notified when the parking is due to expire with the option to extend by phoning a number.

But maximum stay times still exist for some parking areas.

Once registered, users can also have receipts emailed to their account and keep a log of their parking.

The introduction of the service costs Kirklees Council only around £1,500 a year, to pay for 3G cards for parking attendants to wirelessly check payments.

PaybyPhone parking is available at all pay and display car parks and on-street parking areas managed by Kirklees Council’s parking department.

Figures obtained via a Freedom of Information request to Kirklees Council revealed drivers spent £4,490,000 between April 2011 and 2012 when paying to park.

The car parks which brought in the most revenue include: Kingsgate, (£771,956.57), Queensgate (£593,347.70), Spring Grove (£232,332.68), Spring Wood Street (£202,909.19), Huddersfied Civic Centre (£179,904.95), and Huddersfield Bus Station (£146,757.07).

In Holmfirth the Crown Bottom car park raised £108,166.87.

And the latest figures do not yet reflect price hikes in April 2012.

The biggest earners for on-street parking are St Peter’s Street (£85,622.85), John William Street (£74,692.80), Lord Street (£40,026.50) and Market Street (£39,714.70).

A council spokesman said the revenue is being used as re-investment funding, with the most used Queensgate car park set to get £85,000 on the upgrade.

Officials have drawn up plans to replace the broken elevator at Queensgate multi-storey.

l Kirklees currently operates a total of 46 Off Street Pay and Display car parks across the district comprising of approximately 7,200 spaces.

They have a further 1,077 On Street Pay and Display parking spaces.

There are over 220 pay and display machines currently in operation in the district.