Councils across Wales are raking in an extra £200,000 a year by not giving change from parking meters.

Not all machines give change to customers - and that has been described as a “stealth tax” by one campaign group.

But the body representing all of Wales’ 22 councils say that hard pressed councils cannot prioritise updating machines at a time of stretched budgets.

And authorities say that they are spending any of the extra money on their roads and transport.

Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance John O’Connell said: “The lack of respect this shows to people who are already very highly taxed is also upsetting. The councils should cut down on wasteful spending if they want more money, not keep the change of taxpayers who deserve to get their change back.”

Contactless payment comes to Cardiff's parking machines
Drivers can pay with cards and mobile phone apps at some machines

The council making the most by keeping change is Swansea , where parking meters collected an additional £81,133 in unreturned change in 2015-16, while in Carmarthenshire machines collected an extra £50,628, and in Rhondda Cynon Taf an extra £47,653 was collected

As well as this, £26,246 was collected in unreturned change in Caerphilly and £126 in Merthyr Tydfil.

In total, since 2013-14, machines in Swansea have collected £226,284 in unreturned change, while the total since 2010-11 was £313,719 in Carmarthenshire.

Monmouthshire had collected £225,956 between 2010-11 and 2014-15 before prices were increased to round pound amounts, while Newport had no records for 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Other councils in Wales were unable to provide information about unreturned change.

Not all authorities offer drivers the chance to use cashless payments. While Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, and Vale of Glamorgan offer cashless payments on all of their ticket machines, in 2015-16 Swansea offered them on 91% of machines and Cardiff on 93% in 2015-16.

Denbighshire offered cashless payments on just 18% of machines in 2015-16, while Newport had no cashless systems but one machine that gave change.

None of the machines in other parts of Wales offered cashless payment in 2015-16.

Across Britain, councils collected £3.56m in unreturned change in parking metres in 2015-16.

A WLGA spokesman said: “Local authorities are allowed to set car parking charges at levels that will help to meet the aims of their transport strategy. These include road safety and traffic management objectives that ultimately benefit all road users.

“If a surplus arises from on-street charges (which may in some cases include an element of over payment if no change is given) there are rules that require this to be spent on transport-related activities.

“Surpluses from off-street parking charges can be used to achieve a council’s wider corporate policies. However, councils should not plan specifically to make a surplus and should not use parking charges just to raise revenue or as a local tax.

“As we move more towards cashless systems of payment then it is likely that more meters will change over to enable this over time. However, there can be significant costs in making such changes and, at a time of severe pressure on council budgets, there are many other pressing priorities in terms of maintenance of the highway network etc.

Council bosses in Swansea are pledging to roll out more machines which take cards

“When meters are ready for replacement (and that will vary depending on how long the machines have been installed and their expected life) then councils will no doubt consider specifying that cashless payment options are included. Some motorists however still prefer to pay by cash.”

Both Merthyr council and RCT said they reinvest any surplus in their highways budget.

A Merthyr council spokeswoman said: “Any surplus is re-invested into the maintenance of car parks and highways and can only be used for this purpose.”

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council said they offer free parking in Mountain Ash, Porth and Tonypandy, and reduced charges in Aberdare and Pontypridd, to encourage more visitors.

Their charges have been altered to £1 to make it less likely people will need change.

“Any income generated by the Council’s parking charges is re-invested back into the service area – whether this is to fund the service, or for use in transportation projects and highway schemes,” said a spokesman.