Councils charge us £1.30 a second to park to plug budget gap

In 2006-7, the year for which the latest figures are available, £42.7 million was collected from meters, pay-and-display machines, parking permits and fines.

After the costs of paying traffic wardens and security staff, running car parks and operating barriers were deducted, it left a net income of £23 million.

Councils insist the money is needed to plough into services that are underfunded by the Government. Without sharp increases in car park charges, more authorities would be forced to breach rules on capping council tax rises.

Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox said: "The car parks in market towns are a necessary cash cow to stave off the kinds of rises in council tax that we would otherwise see because of Labour's failure to fund local government properly.

"But it is causing serious damage to town centres. I have been talking to councils about the short-sightedness of ratcheting up parking charges. I have great sympathy with the councils but I believe they have got to stop it."

Hugh Blaydon, a founding member of the Association of British Drivers, told the WMN parking charges were necessary to ensure commuters did not clog spaces meant for short-stay shoppers.

"But it has gone up and up and up and local authorities have discovered this is a way of bringing in money to help out their finances. The motorist is seen as an easy target.."

In 2006-7 Plymouth City Council raised the most in the region from parking charges - more than £9.2 million - which left the authority with a net income of almost £5 million.

A council spokesman said the income reflected the fact that Plymouth was the 14th biggest city in the UK, employing 60 civil enforcement officers and providing 21 pay-and-display car parks and more than 250 meters.

Penwith council received a net income of £2 million from the £2.7 million in fines and charges it levelled at drivers, while Kerrier council, one of the smallest in the region, raised just £490,000, which added only £196,000 to its coffers.

In Exeter, the 4,300 spaces across 25 car parks generated a gross income of £2.6 million, producing a profit of £1.9 million. A city council spokesman said much of the money came from the thousands of visitors to the area. "The income is used to maintain this level of parking service and also contributes to the council's overall budget, which in turn helps to keep council tax charges down."

While the city council receives income from on-street parking machines, Devon County Council retains the money from fines.

Torbay MP Adrian Sanders said parking charges remained one of the few areas of finance over which councils retained control . "As a result they have become overly dependent on it, to the detriment of town centres," he said. "Really the answer does not lie in the field of car park pricing but in the reform of council finances more widely."

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said: "Councils don't use parking fines as a revenue-raising exercise and by law they have to use all money received from fines to improve local transport.

"It is not in councils' interests to clobber drivers with fines, but it is their job to keep traffic flowing in town and city centres and keep drivers moving."

Graham Holland, street scene manager for North Cornwall District Council which generated net income of £1.2 million, said: "A proportion of the car park income is used to support infrastructure of car parks and to improve presentation of parking facilities.