Parking pirates? At least we didn’t make a loss

“fleeced already hard-up motorists” of £73 million profits through this “stealth tax” – that’s £200,000 per day, or enough to “repair 3,600 potholes every 24 hours”.

In short, councils’ parking policies don’t win them many friends. And, to emphasise, all those proposed Shake-a-Phrases are from actual quotes, with most appearing on cue again this week. For late November is when the RAC Foundation produces its annual analysis of councils’ official parking returns to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The RAC is less shouty than the tabloids. So it’s ‘surpluses’ from councils’ parking operations, rather than the more emotive ‘profits’, that rose in 2016/17, not ‘rocketed’ – albeit to a record £819 million from a total parking income of £1.6 billion.

Trailing Westminster’s £73 million were several other London boroughs, interrupted in 5th place by Brighton & Hove (£21 million). Birmingham (£11 million) was highest-placed big city at 13th, but just behind Milton Keynes.

The RAC also emphasises “the silver lining for drivers” – that these surpluses must almost exclusively be ploughed back into transport projects, such as road repairs, creating new parking spaces, and subsidising bus travel.

It’s this multi-dimensionality of transport policy, plus its inherent and indisputable localism, that appeals to councillors, but that in a city like Birmingham requires a formidable balancing act.

The council’s primary legal duty is ensuring “the expeditious movement of traffic”. Its political task is framing a parking policy out of competing calls for, among other causes, effective loading areas for businesses, provision for those with disabilities, more sustainable and environmentally friendly modes of travel, improved road safety – oh yes, and are we or aren’t we aiming for a surplus?

It’s rarely mentioned in most tabloid reports, with their focus on ginormous parking charge surpluses, but 44 of England’s 353 councils reported losses in 2016/17, half topping six figures. In the West Midlands, Coventry, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Sandwell all recorded losses during the past five years, though none in 2016/17 – and whether budgeted for or accidental the figures alone aren’t telling.

Needless to say, Birmingham is not in this position. It clearly has parking and parking charge policies, not least of which would appear to be to budget each year for a worthwhile surplus. Moreover, bearing in mind the council’s publicised budgetary difficulties in other areas, its record here seems almost tediously stable and efficient – returning in each of the past five years a steady and steadily increasing surplus.

It would naturally be interesting to learn more about where last year’s £11 million went and who were the main beneficiaries, but my question here is simpler.

In each of those five years Birmingham’s parking surplus (council budget : £3 billion-plus) ranked alongside but mostly fractionally adrift of Milton Keynes (budget : £430 million). If we’re in the parking profiteering business, could or should ours be a bit bigger than, if not Brighton’s, then at least that of Milton Keynes? Chris Game is a lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies, at the University of

Birmingham

It’s rarely mentioned... but 44 of England’s 353 councils reported losses in 2016/17