Parking fine capitals

If you’ve ever been hit by a parking fine, you’ll know that leaving your car even for an extra few minutes beyond the time limit can end up costing you a pretty penny.

But just how much money do councils up and down the UK actually make from car parking fines?

We’ve looked at the PCN (parking charge notice) income for some of the UK’s biggest towns and cities to find out.

Outside of the capital, it’s Glasgow that make the most, with £5.4m generated from parking fines in the last year.

In terms of which council has issued the most fines, Birmingham comes out on top, by far, with 112,735 penalty charge notices being handed out this year, while Gosport, on the South Coast, dished out the highest average fine, at £66.25

As you might expect, it’s the London councils that bring in the most revenue from parking fines, with the borough of Newham raking in the highest amount in the city (£10.6m), which is also far more than the amounts received for any of the cities we looked at.

Rank

City/town

Number of
Penalty Charge Notices

Revenue

Average
Fine issued GBP

Average Number of
Fines Issued a Day

Location with
Highest Number of Fines

Rank

Borough

Number of
Penalty Charge Notices

Revenue

Average
Fine issued GBP

Average Number of
Fines Issued a Day

Location with
Highest Number of Fines

Methodology

Using Freedom of Information requests, we obtained the number of PCNs issued and the income generated from these for each local authority around the UK, with the data referring to the last twelve months.

The data is from Freedom of Information requests sent to local authorities in August 2020. The information is based on the responses of 204 councils that responded with information.

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