PLYMOUTH City Council has written off more than £90,000 of parking tickets in the last two years as it cannot trace drivers of foreign-registered vehicles they have been issued to.

It is among 20 councils and police forces across the UK which had passenger and freight ferry terminals, ports and other major transport hubs near or in their area which responded to a freedom of information request from the Press Association.

Plymouth City Council reported that between April 2008 and October last year 1,553 parking tickets worth £91,070 were cancelled/written off for foreign drivers and addresses "outwith England".

The council said: "The term 'outwith England' is the recognised term within our system to refer to addresses outside England and Wales, which exclude Scotland and Northern Ireland, where we have no statutory authority to enforce parking contraventions.

"A 'foreign driver' is someone who does not have English or Welsh nationality and is not resident in England and Wales."

Among the highest value of tickets written off were areas including London, Portsmouth, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

Bill Blakemore, director of the SPARKS Network, an association of public authorities that campaigns for more effective cross-border traffic enforcement, said: "Local authorities will carry on losing money and struggle to enforce parking tickets against foreign-registered vehicles until the Government sets up working arrangements with other European countries to share ownership data."