Millions of pounds' of parking profits raked in by Merseyside councils

Across the region, the eye-watering amount totals more than £8 million, with local authorities having made their biggest profits from on and off-street in a decade.

St Helens Council was the fourth-highest earner in 2017-18, taking home £425,000.

Merseyside’s biggest money makers were Liverpool, which took a huge £4.017 million in profits in 2017-18.

In second place was Sefton with £2.476 million, with Wirral in third with £1.124 million.

Knowsley was in last place, with £183,000.

This week, driving organisations criticised rising profits across the country for leaving motorists with less money to spend, but the group representing councils said profits were being invested in fixing roads and boosting local economies.

A St Helens Council spokesman said: “With the unprecedented level of savings to be made and the need to protect essential services, parking charges increased last year (2017) for the first time since 2011, yet parking in St Helens is still reasonably priced in comparison with surrounding towns where charges apply.

“Concessions are in place on Saturdays, with parking in all council run car parks capped at 50 pence for up to two hours and £1 for over two hours.

“All profits are recycled to support transport and infrastructure projects within the borough.”

The total profit for councils across Merseyside – of £8.2 million – was up by 14 per cent compared to the £7.2 million in profit the councils made in 2016-17. It has also risen by a quarter compared to the £6.5 million made in 2008-09.

The councils spent £13.3 million on employees and running costs for providing parking in 2017-18.

They raked in £21.3 million in income – including £18.5 million in sales, fees and charges.

Liverpool’s figure was a rise of a quarter in a year, followed by Sefton at £2.5 million, a small fall of 1 per cent in a year.

In terms of the national picture, councils across England made £871.5 million in profits from parking in 2017-18 – the highest amount since records began in 2008-09.

Profits were up six per cent from £819.8 million in 2016-17, and have rocketed 80 per cent in a decade, having stood at £483.4 million in 2008-09.

It cost councils £785.9 million to provide parking services in 2017-18, with costs generally remaining stable over the past decade.

Income from parking services across England was £1.7 billion in 2017-18, including £1.6 billion raised from sales, fees and charges.

Income from sales, fees and charges has risen by six per cent year-on-year and by more than a quarter since 2008-09 – suggesting most of the increase in profits for councils has come from more income from sales, fees and charges.

RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said: “While it is right that local authorities have the ability to control parking, these sort of inflation-busting increases are additional expenses on top of already hard-pressed motorists who have been contending with rising fuel prices and worsening local road conditions.”

AA spokesman Luke Bosdet said increasing parking charges at a time when high streets were struggling was the wrong approach, saying councils should be working to encourage people to visit high streets and spend.

He said: “Firstly, the high cost of parking is sucking money out of consumer spending, money that could be spent in shops.

“Secondly, councils are increasingly reliant on their parking money to prop up their other services. In that respect, it’s a stealth tax. It should cover the cost of providing the service.

“What it’s become is a massive source of income from councils to spend on things not related to parking.”

Cllr Martin Tett, transport spokesman for the Local Government Association, said parking is spent on running parking services, with any surplus only spent on essential transport projects, such as tackling a national £9 billion roads repair backlog, and on other projects that benefit high streets and local economies.

He said: “Councils are on the side of motorists and shoppers. They have to strike a balance when setting parking policy, both on street and off street, to make sure that there are spaces available for residents, high streets are kept vibrant and traffic is kept moving.

“Councils throughout the country are already leading the way in transforming the future potential of their town centres in the face of unprecedented changes in shopping habits and the retail landscape and parking is only part of a successful solution to high performing town centres.”

Responding to a request for comment about the figures, a Liverpool City Council spokesman said any profits from parking charges are reinvested into maintenance, highways upkeep and car parks – citing the new Victoria Street car park as a recent example.

A spokesman for Sefton Council said charges in the borough are “among the cheapest in the region”, and “considerably” lower than many other towns and cities.

He added: “We only issue penalty charge notices if a motorist is found to be in contravention of a restriction, of course, if a motorist believes that a penalty charge notice has been issued incorrectly then they have the opportunity to appeal.

“Any income from Penalty Charge Notices is used to pay for the operation of the parking service.”

A Knowsley Council spokesman added: “The £183,000 quoted refers to income only and does not take in to account the costs associated with delivering the Civil Parking Enforcement service.

“The service is designed to operate on a cost neutral basis and the council did not generate a profit during the 2017-18 financial year. The service did meet its objectives by managing on and off-street parking, keeping traffic moving along key routes and improving road safety, particularly outside the borough’s schools.”

Wirral Council said it had nothing to add to Cllr Tett’s statement.