Richard Nye is driven to anger by the National Trust

Parking trouble in paradise? Blame the National Trust. Richard Nye dissects the madness of automated parking systems with his usual wry humour, literary panache and righteous indignation

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Until then it had been a lovely afternoon. From my vantage point, high on Harting Hill, the Sussex fields seemed to stretch to infinity, ripe unto harvest. Down there hamlets and church spires dotted the bucolic scene; up here the South Downs Way pursued its undulating path to the sea. England in late summer: a pastoral symphony in tones of brown and green.  

Then the tune ended and it was time to pay the piper – or, in this case, the National Trust, in whose rustic car park I had deposited my creaking car. £2, said the info board: a not unreasonable levy. 

But there was a problem. For the National Trust – she of the scented soap, floral towels and blackcurrant jam preserve – is forsaking coins of the realm for the brave new world of cashless parking. No more the barbarous, medieval practice of shoving money in a slot: on Harting Down they do it by phone. 

I knew that I was in for the duration when the voice that ‘answered’ my call referred to “three simple questions”, the first of which related to my car registration number.

“I heard C547 BBM,” replied the voice, wrong by three digits. “Is that correct?”

Unfazed by my exasperated negative, the voice promised to send me a text, to which I should reply with the correct car reg, before calling a totally different number (to be revealed in the text) to continue. Alternatively, I could simply download the Android app. 

Yeah, right.

Obediently, I replied to the text and called the new number. But by the time I’d explained that my car was a silver Renault 11 with no ejector seats or minibar, and had given the four-figure code that corresponded to my present location, my pay-as-you-go mobile was in the throes of a credit crunch.

“That is Harting Down,” intoned the latest voice, presumably as a bonus service for amnesiacs. 

And so to the payment itself: card number, expiry date and so forth. Two digits into the security code, my funds crisis peaked and I was cut off in angry mid-flow. So far this £2 parking had cost me around £6.50 – and I’m still not entirely sure that I paid.

Quite why the NT should be embracing this cashless fad is an open question. As a deterrent to thieves? Perhaps. But scrabbling about in the woods, raiding old wooden boxes for a fistful of pfennigs, does not instantly strike me as the sort of gig to send the Dillinger Gang into overdrive. Opium, gold bullion, sure. But National Trust car parks?

More likely, it is simply an attempt to be ‘with it’. If so, however, it is spectacularly ill-judged. You don’t go to the South Downs to get with the programme – you go to escape it.

On Harting Hill that summer eve, time dissolved into a patchwork eternity of gloriously beguiling dreams. Paradise regained. And then, into this other Eden comes the banal voice of arrogant, preening postmodernity, harassing traditionalists and spouting about Android apps.

Shame on you, National Trust. Perhaps a change of name is in order? On this form, the nation cannot trust you with anything.  

If you're looking for another dose of comedy from Mr Nye have a gander at his column from last month where he does battle with faux romanticism in his garden

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