Millions in parking fines issued

The street-by-street probe - using Freedom of Information laws - has revealed some of Britain's parking hot-spots.

Top of the pile was Lordship Lane in the London borough of Haringey - where a whopping total of £3.2m in parking tickets was issued in 2004/5.

The vast number of tickets in Lordship Lane was created after the local authority introduced new bus lane regulations - and used cameras to police box junctions.

Outside of London, the street with the most fines was George Street in Edinburgh, where £1.3m were slapped on vehicles in the past year.

Many London streets hit the million pound mark for fines in a year, while outside the capital cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow approached £400,000 for one road.

Local councils have defended the charges saying that parking law enforcement is needed to keep the streets clear and the traffic flowing.

In fact some councils - such as Newham in London - make a surplus of as little as £40,000 from parking fines, once the cost of running the scheme is taken into account.

Newham pays a private contractor between £3.4-3.6m a year to provide parking attendants to patrol its streets.

Haringey Council, which is responsible for the fines in Lordship Lane in 2004/5, said the high volume of parking tickets had mainly been as a result of motorists breaking new bus lane regulations and going into box junctions.

The council said the fact the number of tickets issued dropped to about £1m in 2005/6 shows motorists are learning to obey the rules - which in turn keeps the traffic flowing.

A spokeswoman for Edinburgh City Council defended the high volume of tickets in George Street.

She said: "We have to make sure there is a high turnover for traders in the area.

"We have 10,000 on-street, and 10,000 off-street parking spaces in the city. But people want to park in George Street because it's right in the centre of town."

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