Cllr Merlin Milner, a fierce critic of the parking charges in Lewes, said East Sussex County Council, which runs the unpopular parking scheme in Lewes, could have saved taxpayers a huge amount of money in parking costs if it had taken out insurance on the pay-and-display machines.

Vandals have caused more then £300,000 worth of the damage since the introduction of the parking charges and machines in September 2004.

The council has increased parking costs to recoup the money used to pay for repairs and replacement meters.

Cllr Milner said: 'The county council has left itself open to this.

'They have had criminal damage to their parking meters and I think they have given us criminal negligence by not insuring them.

'This should have been done before the scheme was introduced, if they had been insured it would have limited the effect of the vandalism.

'We as tax-payers have lost out because of this.'

Cllr Milner said he raised the issue with the county council but was told insurers would not cover the pay-and-display machines.

However, when he contact other local authorities - including Tunbridge Wells and Exeter councils - he found the councils had taken out insurance on their machines.

A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said:'We don't as a rule insure our street equipment because usually it's very rare that it's damaged and it would be poor use of council tax payers money.

'But Lewes is a unique situation because parking meters are not being attacked elsewhere in the country.

'We looked into getting insurance straight after the first incident but we were told they were uninsurable because the insurers thought it may happen again.'