£2bn parking bill
By Tom Latchem, 19/12/2009
News of the World
GREEDY councils are exploiting motorists by raking in almost £2 BILLION a year in parking fees and fines.
Last year drivers paid a record £1.9bn to town halls in England - 8 per cent up on the previous year and TREBLE the £638m for 1997/98 when Labour came to power.
That means around £60 a year is going straight from the pocket of every motorist into town hall coffers. Experts fear councils are ripping off car owners to plug gaps in their finances as the squeeze on public spending tightens.
The revenue bonanza is biggest in areas like central London and Brighton where parking is scarcest - and many town halls are believed to make most of their money in fines.
Figures released by the Department of Communities and Local Government do not differentiate between meter charges and penalties.
But a spokesman said: "Parking charges are a tool to manage demand for road use and should not be used for raising revenue.
Jennifer Dunn of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "Motorists are being treated like cash cows. Too often we see unscrupulous and target-driven enforcement of parking."
Top ten revenue earners in London:
1. Westminster £180m
2. Camden £80m
3. Kensington & Chelsea £77m
4. Islington £55m
5. Wandsworth £51m
6. Hammersmith & Fulham £47m
7. Lambeth £40m
8. Tower Hamlets £31m
9. Ealing £30m
10. Hackney £29m.
Top ten elsewhere: 1. Brighton & Hove £38m 2. Birmingham £24m 3. Manchester £20m 4. Leeds £19m 5. Milton Keynes £16m 6. Newcastle upon Tyne £15m 7. Kent £15m 8. Bristol £14m 9. Liverpool £14m 10. City of Nottingham £13m.
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2010
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February
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- North East press covers the Manifesto launch
- Support the Fighting Fund
- Parking: How Town Hall ‘steals’ motorists’ money
- Police seize documents from the Traffic Penalty Tr...
- Business boss calls police in parking row
- We are now watching the watchers ...'Basildon Beas...
- The Beast of Basildon
- Illegal credit card surcharge on Staffordshire PCNs
- Westminster parking contract fraud investigation ...
- Misleading parking signs removed
- Motorists Legal Challenge dubbed the 'unofficial p...
- Seems that some councils just cannot help themselv...
- Just an oversight ...oh really?
- South Somerset Council ... £5.00 is not fine!
- Diplomatic Row continues
- The tip of a very large iceberg ...admission of cr...
- Suspended Bays signs ... more cancellations and re...
- Is nothing sacred ... or is there more to this?
- Conflicts of Interest for Adjudicators?
- Serious errors in council contracts
- Police investigating council parking department
- Department for Transport officials going through a...
- Diplomatic Row Continues
- A £2,000,000,000 a year industry
- It's all about the money. Show me the money
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1 comment:
wow I knew it was a lot but never expected it to be this much.
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