Parking profits rise again for English councils

New RAC Foundation analysis has reported that councils in England have seen their parking ‘profits’ rise by 32 per cent in the last four years.

Total income from both on- and off-street parking activity was £1.66 billion in 2017-18, with the combined surplus made by the 353 English local authorities totalling £867 million, up from £658 million in 2013-14. Total expenditure was £793 million.

The profit for last year was six per cent higher than the £819 million made in the previous financial year (2016-17). It is also 11 per cent higher than the £782 million surplus that the councils themselves had budgeted for. Of the 353 councils which made official financial returns to central government, only 39 made a loss from their parking activities.

The councils with the biggest surpluses were in London, with Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth and Hammersmith & Fulham recording the highest levels of surplus among local authorities in England. Brighton & Hove completed the top five list.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “When totted up council parking income amounts to a multi-million-pound business. Our purpose in publishing this analysis is not to suggest the existence of any sharp practice, but to encourage motorists to seek out and read their own local authority’s annual parking report – and ask some pointed questions if their authority doesn’t publish one.

“We think it is important that motorists check for themselves whether their own council’s explanation of the level of charges, penalties and details of how the net income is then spent reflects, as it should, the use of parking controls purely as a tool to manage traffic.”