Parking fees make almost £1bn a year

Councils’ cash from penalties and permits soars

CAR parking charges and penalty fees are surging towards making £1billion a year for councils in England alone, it has been claimed.

Cash- strapped local authorities are feared to be targeting residents and shoppers with punishing parking costs, backed by armies of traffic wardens.

The council surplus related to parking rose to £930million in the past year, research by the RAC Foundation showed. This was up by £63million on the year before and some 41 per cent on the £658million for 2013-14.

Councils are desperate to bring in money against the background of cuts to funding. However, hitting drivers with charges and penalty notices inevitably causes anger while driving customers away from Britain’s high streets, which only serves to kill off town centres.

Foundation research based on official figures shows the 353 local authorities in England received total income of £1.746billion from their on and off-street parking operations in 2018-19. The figure raked in from penalty charges leapt by 6 per cent – £26million – to £454million.

The RAC said the amount councils spent on running parking, as reported to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, was £816million.

Taking this figure away from income, the RAC Foundation said this leaves a surplus – which it describes as a profit – of £930million. However, this does not take into account interest payments or depreciation on capital assets such as car parks, as these figures are not accounted for in data.

The research shows Westminster made the most with £69.2million, followed by Kensington & Chelsea at £37.3million and Wandsworth at £26.3million.

Outside of London, the biggest surplus was found in Brighton & Hove, at just over £26million. The figure was £13.5million in Birmingham, £10.4million in Bristol and £9.7million in Cornwall. Some councils deliberately hike charges at above the rate of inflation to encourage people to switch to public transport or fund concessionary bus fares for the elderly.

The RAC Foundation’s Steve Gooding said: ‘Penalties now seem to account for nearly half of all on-street parking income. What will surprise drivers is that even as parking income soars, the amount being spent on routine road maintenance by councils has been in reverse.’ David Renard, of the

Local Government Association, said: ‘Any income raised through on- street parking charges and fines is spent on running parking services. Any surplus is only spent on essential transport projects, such as filling potholes.’

But Hugh Bladon, of the Alliance of British Drivers, which speaks for ordinary motorists, said drivers are being seen as cash cows by councils.

He added: ‘Unfortunately, once you sit in your car and start your engine, it seems almost impossible not to transgress in some way.’

IS any British group more tyrannised than the motorist? Already burdened by punishing fuel prices and car insurance, we now learn parking fees and fines rake in almost £1 billion in profits for councils.

Of course, local authorities protest they use the money for vital road maintenance.

But this should be funded transparently, not by ambushing drivers.

Prohibitive parking costs also have a baleful effect on town centre shops – contributing to high streets’ demise. Whoever takes office next month must legislate to cap them at a reasonable level. Motorists have been milked for far too long.