£2bn parking bill
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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