WYCHAVON District Council made more £2.075million in profit from car park fees and fines in 2016/17, up £326,000 on the year before.
Figures released by the RAC Foundation show neighbouring Bromsgrove District Councl raked in £536,000, up £94,000 on the 2015/16 figures.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “The upward path in profits is in part a reflection of the record number of cars and volume of traffic.
“The silver lining for drivers is that these surpluses must almost exclusively be ploughed back into transport and as any motorist will tell you there is no shortage of work to be done.”
He welcomed that councils were increasingly investing in technology to help make parking easier and less stressful and he urged motorists to read the full report on their local authority so they can see the rationale for charges and how the cash is being spent.
Vic Allison, Wychavon District Council’s head of resources, said: “We do not charge for on-street parking.
“We do issue penalty charge notices to ensure the traffic through our town centres continues to flow as smoothly as possible but we make no money on these as all income covers the cost of running the service.
“In terms of our town centre pay and display car parks, we do make a surplus of £2million a year and this goes to support the overall council budget, including management of our parks and town centre cleaning and helps ensure our Council Tax bills remain amongst the lowest in the country.
“Our parking charges compare favourably with other councils and we have committed to no increases in parking charges for the life of the current council.”
Other authorities in Worcestershire listed by the RAC Foundation included Worcester which made £2.4million profit in 2016/17, up £330,000 on 2015/16 and Redditch which was £6,000 down on the previous year with an overall revenue of -£56,000.
This is primarily because the majority of car parks in Redditch are operated by the Kingfisher Shopping Centre.
Nationwide, UK councils made £819million profit from parking charges in 2016/17.
Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, said the figures suggested rising charges were continuing to burden drivers across the country.
“Our own research shows the average driver will rack up almost £10,000 worth of parking charges and fines over a 25-year period – £6,952 of which is spent on car park fees alone.
“Drivers who are fed up with hefty parking charges can avoid this by booking parking in advance and shopping around for the cheapest spaces via our car parking tool.
“Those who feel a parking ticket has been issued unfairly should proceed to challenge it, and report any unclear parking signs to the local council to avoid future confusion.”
* WHAT do you think about the parking profit made by Wychavon District Council? Where would you like to see the funds spent? Email [email protected] with your views.
