Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Rise in parking profit
Figures show city council made £1.6million last year
DUNDEE City Council raked in more than £1.6m of profit from parking last year.
Figures published by the RAC Foundation show that the authority’s parking schemes were the fourth-most lucrative in Scotland.
The council’s profits have more than doubled in the last four years, from £0.75m in 2012/13 to £1.65m in 2015/16, and increased by more than a third in the last year alone.
Researchers at the motoring charity obtained figures from the Scottish Government on the operating costs and parking revenue of each council to calculate their overall profits.
Dundee trailed only Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen in the table.
By comparison, Perth and Kinross Council made £0.22m last year, ranking 12th, while Angus Council posted a loss of £0.11m, ranking 22nd.
In total, Scottish councils made over £40m from car parks last year.
West End Community Council chairman Peter Menzies, who has repeatedly called for parking reform, said the council had to prioritise service provision over profit.
He said: “It’s now about time that the council closed up the gap between service and revenue.
“People are being pushed out of the city centre by the costs. What the council needs to understand is that in West End and Maryfield we are struggling with people ‘parking and striding’.”
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said councils had seen a “significant increase” in profit in recent years. He said: “Providing and managing the space for us to park our cars is not a cost-free activity for councils, but controlling those costs is clearly important.
“The good news is that this money must be re-invested in transport services including, Scottish drivers will expect, maintaining the roads.”
Kelvin Reynolds, director of policy and public affairs at the British Parking Association, said the increase in profit in fact demonstrated councils were being “more efficient”, adding: “An increase in parking revenue is a sign of a healthy town which meets the needs of the community.”