Highway Robbery - Capita and Co Help Fleece Motorists of �100s of Millions

09 December 2016 | Updated 01 January 1970

The surplus produced from council parking operations in England has reached a record high of just over three quarters of a billion pounds.

In the 2015-16 financial year the 353 local authorities in England generated a combined ‘profit’ of £756 million from their on- and off-street parking activities.

This is a 9% leap on the 2014-15 figure of £693 million and 34% higher than in 2011-12.

Although not all individual councils made a large surplus on their parking activities just 49 (14%) reported negative numbers.

The figures are calculated by taking income from parking charges and penalty notices and then deducting running costs - such as fees paid to ruthless outsourced companies such as Capita. The overall rise in profits is a combination of increasing income (4% up on the previous financial year) and decreasing costs (2% down on the previous financial year).

Most councils are forced to admit defeat when confronted by the Parking Adjudicator where they have acted grossly unfairly - but many motorists will not challenge Parking Charge Notices for rear of losing the 'discount' offered for early payment.

Barnet Council for instance deploys (under contract) teams on mopeds when Saracens Rugby Club plays its home matches in the area. Roughly 3,500 tickets are issued in under five hours for every home match. Each parking officer is charged with issuing a ticket (illegally as by law they should allow observation time) in under one minute. Both Barnet and Westminster along with other Councils have regularly been warned that parking tickets should only be issued to legitimately help control traffic and not as a profit maker.

The data – analysed for the RAC Foundation by transport consultant David Leibling – comes from the statutory annual returns that councils make to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Once again the largest surpluses were seen in London with the 33 London boroughs making £332 million between them – 44% of the English total.

Westminster had the largest surplus in England (£55.9 million) followed by Kensington & Chelsea (£34.2 million) and Camden (£25.2 million).

The biggest profits outside of London were reported by Brighton & Hove (£20.1 million) followed by Nottingham (£13.6 million) and Milton Keynes (£10.8 million).

The figure for Nottingham is significantly influenced by income of approximately £9 million from the Workplace Parking Levy which is now in its fourth year.

Picture: Despite paying costs, much of which will go to ruthless outsourced companies, councils in England robbed motorist of £756 million in pure profit

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 09 December 2016