English Councils Banked a Record £1.1 Billion From Every Driver’s Parking Fines Last Year

• English councils banked a record £1.094 billion surplus from parking in 2024-25, the third year running the total has climbed, based on official accounts analysed by the RAC Foundation.
• Westminster Council took the largest share at £90.6 million, a rise of 19.3 percent on the year before, while total income from parking across England passed £2.1 billion.
• A 1984 law limits what councils can spend the money on, and drivers who think they were fined unfairly can challenge it for free through an independent tribunal.

A Third Record Year in a Row

Every parking ticket paid this year fed into a record national total. Councils across England finished the 2024-25 financial year with a combined parking surplus of £1.094 billion, according to figures compiled by the RAC Foundation from local authorities’ own statutory accounts. That is up from £1.019 billion the year before, and £884 million the year before that: three straight years of rising profit from the tickets, meters and permits drivers pay for every day.

The RAC Foundation’s analysis covers 295 of England’s 317 local authorities, with national parks left out of the count. Across those councils, parking brought in £2.163 billion in income against running costs of £1.07 billion, leaving the £1.094 billion surplus. Town halls had already budgeted for a surplus close to £1.12 billion for the year, so the final outturn landed near what councils expected when they drew up their books.

The climb has been steady rather than a single jump: £884 million in 2022-23, £1.019 billion in 2023-24, and now £1.094 billion in 2024-25. That is a rise of close to a quarter in two years, even as the number of councils filing full returns with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has grown slightly each year.

Put another way, a surplus of £1.094 billion works out to roughly £3.5 million for every council included in the RAC Foundation’s count, though the real spread is nowhere near that even. A handful of authorities with heavy town-centre parking and high visitor numbers take the lion’s share, while many smaller or more rural councils run their parking accounts close to break-even once staffing, enforcement vehicles, signage and ticket machines are paid for.

Westminster’s £90 Million Lead

One council stands well clear of the rest. Westminster, which covers the West End, Mayfair and some of the busiest kerbside in the country, earned £90.6 million from parking in 2024-25. That is a 19.3 percent jump on the £75.9 million it made the year before, and it keeps Westminster at the top of the table for another year running. The borough’s mix of paid bays, residents’ permit zones and a dense network of yellow lines gives it far more opportunities to charge than almost any other authority in England.

The RAC Foundation’s published figures name Westminster specifically but do not rank every council individually. Drivers who want to see their own area’s numbers can check directly: every council in England has to publish its own parking account each year, a short statutory document showing income, costs and surplus for that one authority. Searching a council’s name alongside “statutory parking account” on its own website is usually enough to find the latest version, and it is worth a look before assuming a fine helped pay for a pothole rather than the cost of enforcing it.

Where the Law Says the Money Must Go

Parking profit cannot simply disappear into a council’s general budget. Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 sets out exactly what a surplus from on-street parking can pay for, and the list is narrower than most drivers assume.

Once any earlier shortfall is covered, the law lets a council spend the surplus on its own off-street car parks, or on contributions toward other authorities’ off-street parking. If a council decides it does not need further off-street parking, the money can instead fund public transport services, a highway or road improvement project, or environmental improvement work in the area. London councils can also put part of it toward road maintenance. None of it is meant to plug gaps in social care, bin collections or any other service that has nothing to do with roads and transport.

That restriction is why parking income shows up as a ring-fenced line in a council’s accounts rather than being folded into general spending. It is also the detail behind most complaints that a council treats enforcement as a general revenue stream rather than a traffic management tool: the law says otherwise, even when the sums involved reach into the tens of millions.

A council’s parking account is folded into its wider statutory accounts, which an external auditor checks every year alongside the rest of the authority’s finances. That is part of why the figures behind this story exist at all: without that annual reporting duty, nobody outside the council would know how much a borough was making from parking, let alone where the money is allowed to go once it has been collected.

Can You Get Your Money Back? Here’s How to Challenge a Fine

Drivers who think a penalty charge notice was wrong are not stuck with it. The process starts with an informal challenge: write to the council within 14 days of the notice, or 21 days if it arrived by post, setting out why you think it is wrong. Most councils still offer the usual 50 percent discount on the fine if you pay soon after an informal challenge is rejected, rather than losing the reduction for good.

If the informal route fails, drivers get 28 days to make formal representations, a free process set out on the notice to owner that follows a rejected informal challenge. A council that turns down a formal representation has to issue a notice of rejection, and that is the point at which the case can go to an independent tribunal rather than back to the council itself.

A formal representation stands a better chance when it comes with evidence rather than just an objection. Photos of unclear or missing signage, proof that a bay was used for loading within the rules, a timestamped receipt showing a pay-and-display ticket was bought, or confirmation that a blue badge was correctly displayed can all support a case. The stronger the paper trail attached to the written challenge, the easier it is for a council officer, or later a tribunal, to agree the ticket should never have been issued.

That tribunal is the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for councils outside London, and London Tribunals for boroughs inside the capital. Both let a driver submit their case and evidence in writing, with no need to attend in person, and the appeal costs nothing. Roughly one in three appeals to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal succeed, which makes a contested ticket far from a lost cause.

Losing at tribunal is not free, though. Pay within 28 days of a final decision, or the penalty rises by 50 percent, and an unpaid fine that reaches that stage can end up referred to the county court, which can affect a driver’s credit record and add court costs on top of the original charge.

A Different Story From Private Car Parks

Council-run parking is a separate system from the private car parks run by retail and leisure operators, where a new code now caps charges at £100 and gives drivers a short grace period before a charge can be issued at all. The rules, the appeals route and the company collecting the money are all different in each system, so a letter from a council and one from a private parking firm call for two different responses, not the same one.

Three years of rising surpluses suggest the trend has further to run. Councils have already budgeted for a surplus close to this year’s total for 2025-26, and with local government finances still stretched, few authorities look likely to ease off their enforcement any time soon. Knowing exactly where the law allows that money to go, and knowing a wrongly issued ticket can be challenged for nothing, is the clearest protection most drivers have against a system that is only getting more profitable for the councils running it.

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Sources:

• RAC Foundation: Council parking revenue in England 2024-25
• RAC Foundation: Council parking revenue in England 2023-24
• Citizens Advice: Appealing a parking ticket
• Milton Keynes Council: Parking Surplus Report 2023-24