Drivers Handed Councils a £993 Million Kerbside Parking Surplus as Penalty Notices Hit £899 Million

• On street parking left English councils a net surplus of £992.6 million in 2025 to 2026, up 27.4 percent from £779.0 million, in the returns of the 292 councils that reported on street figures in both years to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
• Penalty charge notices alone brought in £898.6 million, up 16.3 percent from £772.6 million, while the cost of running on street parking rose just 1.8 percent.
• London boroughs took 77.7 percent of the penalty income and 82.5 percent of the surplus, and the law limits how councils can spend an on street parking surplus.

Councils Collected £226 Million More From the Kerb While Their Costs Barely Moved

English councils took £1,729.8 million in income from on street parking in the financial year from April 2025 to March 2026 and spent £737.2 million running it. The £992.6 million left over is the net surplus. That is £213.5 million more than the £779.0 million of a year earlier, a rise of 27.4 percent. Spread across the 365 days of the year, the surplus came to about £2.7 million every day.

Penalty charge notices, the tickets issued for parking and for traffic offences such as driving in a bus lane, account for just over half of the income. They brought in £898.6 million, up 16.3 percent from £772.6 million. Other on street sales, fees and charges added £769.4 million, up 13.7 percent from £676.8 million. Other income makes up the rest.

The cost side barely moved. Expenditure on on street parking rose by £12.8 million, or 1.8 percent, from £724.5 million. Income rose by £226.3 million. Of every extra £100 that came in, £94 reached the surplus.

Where the £993 Million Surplus Comes From

The figures come from the revenue outturn return for highways and transport that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) published on 17 September 2026. MHCLG’s first release treats the outturn as provisional. Councils report what they spent and received on on street parking, and the return calculates the net figure. A negative net figure in the workbook is a surplus.

Not every council is in the totals. Of the 317 councils listed, 292 returned on street parking figures for both years, and 25 had not returned in time for publication. MHCLG estimates England totals for the missing authorities. The sums here add up only the 292 that reported, so they are not England totals, and both years use the same 292 for a like for like comparison. The 2024 to 2025 year has its own report on the 2024 to 2025 council parking income, drawn from a different publication, so the two sets of totals should not be set side by side.

The surplus is not spread evenly. Of the 292 councils, 135 reported a net surplus, 50 a net deficit and 107 a net figure of zero. Off street car parks sit on a separate line: their net surplus was £401.7 million, up 8.4 percent from £370.5 million. Every other figure here concerns kerbside spaces and penalty notices.

London Boroughs Write More Than Four in Five of the Surplus Pounds

The 33 London authorities, the 32 boroughs and the City of London, collected £698.5 million in penalty charge notice income, which is 77.7 percent of the £898.6 million total. That is up 18.4 percent from £589.8 million. Their on street surplus was £819.2 million, 82.5 percent of the £992.6 million total and up 31.2 percent from £624.2 million.

The other 259 councils collected £200.1 million in penalty income, up 9.4 percent from £182.8 million, and made a surplus of £173.3 million, up 12.0 percent from £154.8 million. Outside the capital, Manchester took the most in penalty income at £15.0 million, against £14.8 million a year earlier. Brighton and Hove reported the largest surplus outside London, £22.2 million, down from £27.6 million.

Westminster sits alone at the top. Its on street surplus was £110.0 million, up 21.4 percent from £90.6 million, and its penalty income rose 42.5 percent to £69.5 million from £48.8 million. The council produced 11.1 percent of the total surplus on its own. Lambeth followed with £57.3 million (from £39.4 million), then Kensington and Chelsea with £55.0 million (from £49.7 million), Hammersmith and Fulham with £52.0 million (from £37.9 million) and Haringey with £50.9 million (from £31.5 million). Those five together reported £325.1 million, or 32.8 percent of the surplus.

Some single jumps are steep. Haringey’s penalty income went from £35.9 million to £56.5 million and Ealing’s from £31.8 million to £48.3 million. The return records what each council reports and gives no reason for a change, so the figures show the size of the move and nothing about its cause.

What Councils Are Allowed to Spend the Money On

Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 governs the money. A council must keep an account of its income and spending on its parking places. At the end of each financial year any deficit is made good from the council’s general fund. Any surplus must go to the purposes the section lists, and whatever is not applied is set aside for a specific project within those purposes and carried forward. A council can instead choose to carry the unspent amount forward in the account.

The list starts with repaying the general fund for any deficit charged to it in the previous four years, then covers providing and maintaining off street parking, including contributions to other bodies that do so. If it appears to the council that more off street parking is unnecessary or undesirable, the surplus can pay for public passenger transport services, highway or road improvement projects, and environmental improvement. The Act defines that last purpose to include cutting pollution, improving the look or amenity of a road or of open land the public can reach, and free outdoor recreation facilities. Authorities that the government prescribes by regulation can also use it for any other purpose on which they can lawfully spend money. London authorities can use it to maintain roads once the off street test is met, to carry out anything the Mayor’s transport strategy specifies as a purpose for a surplus, and can contribute to other London authorities. A London borough must report to the Mayor of London after each financial year on what it did with a deficit or surplus.

The law restricts an on street parking surplus to transport and related purposes, and a council that runs a deficit on the account must make it good from its general fund. The MHCLG figure is the net on street line each council returned, not the section 55 account itself, so the sum the law restricts at any one council is whatever that council’s own account shows.

How to Challenge a Penalty Notice Before It Grows

Every penalty notice starts a clock. A driver usually has 28 days to pay, and in some cases the penalty is reduced for payment within 14 days. A driver also has 28 days to challenge. A challenge made within 14 days that is then rejected could leave the driver owing only 50 percent of the fine.

The route depends on how the notice arrived. A council notice left on the windscreen is first challenged informally with the council. A notice sent by post, called a notice to owner, is challenged formally through what is called a representation. An accepted challenge at either stage means no fine. A rejected informal challenge brings a notice to owner that explains how to pay or how to challenge formally.

A formal challenge has to be made within 28 days of receiving the notice to owner. It needs the reasons for the challenge in as much detail as possible, plus copies of any evidence. If the council rejects it, the driver receives a notice of rejection that allows 28 days to pay or to appeal to an independent tribunal. Drivers in the capital can see how that stage ends in the London tribunal appeal results.

GOV.UK’s guide covers council and similar public tickets: paying and challenging works differently in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and private car park tickets follow their own rules. Missing the final deadline costs real money. A driver who neither pays nor appeals gets a charge certificate, which gives 14 days to pay the original fine plus 50 percent. On a £100 penalty that means £150. Fail to pay the certificate within 14 days and a court order demanding payment follows. Timing also affects a complaint to the ombudsman: the Surrey ombudsman parking fine case shows how paying first can close that door.

Find Your Own Council’s Figures

Every council appears by name in MHCLG’s RO2 highways and transport workbook for 2025 to 2026, with its on street parking income, spending, net figure and penalty charge notice income. The 2024 to 2025 workbook sits alongside for comparison. The 25 councils that had not returned their figures show as [x], which the workbook notes define as data not received, so that mark on a local council is a missing return and not a nil one.

For the legal account, ask the council for its section 55 account, which the law requires it to keep. Ask also how the latest surplus was applied against the list above, and whether any of it went to public transport, highway improvement or environmental projects in the area. In London the law adds a second record: each borough must report to the Mayor of London every year on what it did with a deficit or surplus.

The next year of returns will show whether the 27.4 percent rise in the surplus holds. For now, the 2025 to 2026 figures set the benchmark: penalty income of £898.6 million, a surplus of £992.6 million and a cost base that grew by less than two percent.

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