Pensioners forced to pay more for parking as they can’t use technology to book online

The midday sun is blazing down on the car park next to the picturesque harbour at Wells-Next-The-Sea… and on a line of dismayed pensioners standing in front of the pay station.

Most of them have arrived with coins ready to pay, but a sign says it's £6 for two hours by cash, but £1 an hour and £4 all day if they pay online.

"I think it's just wrong," says a flustered Diane Burton, who is holding a fistful of pound coins. "I'm 75, I don't know how to do that.

"Most older people have mobile phones , but only for making calls, not for paying for things or anything else. They're making us pay more to park here just because we belong to a different generation."

Her husband, 79-year-old Stanley, agrees: "We didn't have computers when I was at school, just slates and beads. I'm completely computer illiterate.

"It seems like they're making it harder for older people, when they really should be trying to make our lives easier. Especially as there are so many of us now."

The couple have a point. In this pretty fishing town, known for its quaint streets, sand dunes and colourful beach huts, pensioners like them now actually form the majority.

On census day last year over one in three people in this part of the North Norfolk coast were aged over 65, the Office for National Statistics revealed this week.

While elderly holidaymakers flock to the region, a designated area of a natural beauty which includes towns like Wells, Cromer and North Walsham, those who have lived here all their lives are getting older and well-off retirees are also moving in.

The figures reflect long-term changes in the UK population, with the balance tilting away from younger age groups and towards the elderly.

In the same census some 18.6% of the population of England and Wales were aged 65 and over, up from 16.4% in 2011 and this highest ever. Just 23.1% were aged under 20 – down from 24%.

But while there are more pensioners in the country than ever before, the ones pottering around Wells' craft shops, eating fish and chips on the quayside or strolling the coastal path to the beach think more could be done to make life easier for them.

Another couple in their 70s, David and Gloria Meek, had come into town from their home in the village of Docking, 11 miles away, to take their dog to have a haircut at the pet groomers.

Retired BT engineer David, 75, says he also had to pay more for parking rather than go through the process of paying online, which involved accessing a website, then inputting his car registration and then his debit card details.

"It's not like the days when an old boy would be sitting there at the entrance and you gave him a quid," he laughs.

The couple, who have two grown-up children, say they have noticed the population getting older over the years – both because of people choosing to retire in the area, and the fact younger people are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live there.

David, who has lived in the area all his life, says: "We were fortunate, we were able to pay the deposit on our son's house, and half our daughter's, but there are a lot of old folks round here who aren't able to have their children living nearby, because house prices have gone through the roof.

"In our village half of the houses are holiday homes, that go for a fortune on Airbnb."

Gloria, 73, a retired mushroom farm worker, thinks local authorities have been slow to accommodate their increasingly older residents and visitors.

"The councils don't put enough money aside. When you get older you can't walk as well as you used to. Yet the pavements are still all up and down, which makes life more difficult. When we come here we eat our fish and chips sitting on the wall because there aren't enough benches.

"Then there are the buses. We've just got a bus service from our village to King's Lynn, which goes five times a day, after people got the parish council involved in it. But the last bus leaves town at 5 o'clock, as if older people don't stay up longer than 6!"

But she adds: "We love living round here. We're very lucky to be growing old in such a beautiful part of the country."

Most people point to the influx of rich Londoners buying second homes as a reason why there are more older than younger people in the area.

Pam Frary, 68, is working at her family's shell fish stall on the sea front. Her own daughter, though, lives 26 miles away in Southrepps, on the other side of Cromer, because she couldn't afford to buy a home near her mother.

"It's a real shame there aren't more younger people and families here, I'd love to see more of them, they're the next generation," says Pam.

"But there aren't enough houses for them. Second home owners have taken lots of properties, and pushed prices up. It's not only bad for the younger ones because they can't enjoy this lovely place, but for us too because we're not close to our children and grandchildren."

She also believes not enough is being done in the country to make it OAP-friendly. "There aren't enough public toilets, that's a real issue here," she says.

"My older sister is 72, and she now has two or three bills which she can only pay online, and she doesn't have a computer or smartphone. So she has to take a bus from her home near here in Fakenham all the way to Littleport, 45 miles away, where her son lives so he can pay them for her. It's a journey that takes all day."

In The Edinburgh pub in the town centre, local David Hudson, 79, is having his daily pint and "jaw" with his friends.

"There are a lot of us who have been here a long time. I was born here," he says. "But I don't have a mobile phone, and I don't have a computer. I just have a landline. I'm a dinosaur.

"We love it here. But things are getting more difficult for us old folks, not easier. Barclays just closed their branch here, and now there are no banks left. I've tried to call telephone banking but I can't make any sense of them. Our generation is used to meeting people face to face and looking them in the eye.

"So now if I have a cheque to pay in I deposit it at the Post Office. I'm not sure what I'll do when I can't do that.

"Every three months I go to another town where there's a bank to take money out. I don't believe in paying for things with credit cards, I can't keep a track of what I spend. And I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway."

Back at the quayside, Diane and Stanley are enjoying their day out by the sea despite their parking frustrations.

Diane says the couple, from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, fell in love with the area when they visited after seeing it on a holiday programme. "It's a lovely place to come, so quiet and peaceful, it's no wonder there are so many people our age here.

"I just think people should remember where people our age have come from. We're not tech savvy. We're from a generation where we didn't have mobiles, where personal contact was important, where we paid for things in cash. The country should move forward, but without leaving us behind."

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