Milton Keynes Council’s Parking Surplus Hit £12.8 Million, Up 42 Percent in Two Years

• Milton Keynes City Council reported a £12.797 million on-street parking surplus for 2025/26, up from £8.988 million in 2023/24, a rise of 42 percent in two years.
• That surplus paid for £12.797 million of a £15.395 million spending programme, including £3.676 million on concessionary fares and £4.948 million on highways capital investment.
• The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 ring-fences the money, but the council report does not say what drove the increase.

Milton Keynes Parking Raised £12.8 Million More Than It Cost to Run in 2025/26

Milton Keynes City Council has published its annual statement of what happened to the money drivers pay to park on its streets, and the headline number is £12.797 million. That is the on-street parking surplus for 2025/26 from spaces in and around Central Milton Keynes, the amount left once the cost of running the parking operation has been taken off.

The figure sits in a delegated decision report dated 25 August 2026, signed off by Councillor Lauren Townsend, the Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Resources and Customer Experience. The report’s author is Paul Harrison, the council’s Network and Enforcement Manager, and the sponsor is Graham Cox, Assistant Director of Highways and Transport. It is not marked as exempt or confidential, and it was not subject to scrutiny before the decision was taken.

Two years earlier the same annual report put the surplus at £8.988 million. The gap between the two years is £3.809 million, which works out at a rise of 42 percent. Spread across a 365 day year, the 2025/26 surplus comes to about £35,000 for every day of the year.

The report is a required annual review of surplus parking income. It asks the cabinet member to do two things: note the surplus, and note how it was used. There are no alternatives offered in the document, and it says no further action is needed once the decision is recorded.

Where the £12.8 Million Surplus Was Spent

Annex B to the report, titled “Use of the parking Surplus 2025/26”, lists every line of spending. Total expenditure was £15.395 million. The parking surplus funded £12.797 million of that, and the council’s own funds covered the remaining £2.598 million. In other words, parking income paid for just over 83 percent of the programme.

The largest single line is capital investment in highways at £4.948 million, about 32 percent of the total. Passenger transport is next, with a subtotal of £5.306 million. Inside that sits £3.676 million for concessionary fares, which is roughly 24 percent of the whole programme, along with £489,000 for the passenger transport team, £473,000 for direct responsive transport, £396,000 for community transport and £272,000 for passenger transport subsidies.

A further £363,000 goes on other passenger transport projects, headed by £211,000 for bus infrastructure and £73,000 for real time passenger transport information. Add that to the main passenger transport subtotal and bus and transport spending comes to £5.669 million, close to 37 percent of the programme.

The parking category itself takes £3.514 million. Within it, other off street car parks account for £1.755 million and cleansing for £1.564 million. Winter gritting is £84,000, maintenance and energy is £99,000, multi storey car parks are £7,000 and landscaping is £5,000. Environmental improvements, defined as improving land by roads and open spaces and recreational facilities that are free to the public, take £1.088 million.

The smallest lines are traffic staffing and management at £149,000, made up of £99,000 for traffic management and £50,000 for road safety, and publicity at £27,000. Every line adds up to the £15.395 million total, so the annex accounts for the whole programme.

What the Law Lets a Council Do With Parking Money

Councils cannot spend parking income on whatever they like. Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, in its England and Wales form on legislation.gov.uk, sets out the permitted uses. The legislation page states it reflects changes known to be in force on or before 25 September 2026.

A council must first repay its general fund for any deficit charged to it in the previous four years. After that, surplus can pay all or part of the cost of providing and maintaining off street parking, and can go as contributions to other bodies for similar provision. Where the authority decides that further off street parking is unnecessary or undesirable, the Act opens up wider uses: public passenger transport services and facilities, highway or road improvement projects, and environmental improvement.

The Milton Keynes report says the account is ring-fenced on exactly this basis, that any deficit has to be met from the general fund first, and that every item of expenditure listed complies with Section 55. It also gives the council’s own reasoning: subsidising passenger transport supports sustainability and reduces car trips, and parking enforcement can cut crime and vehicle crime through visible patrols and ANPR vehicles.

Any surplus not used in a year has to be appropriated to a specific project within those purposes and carried forward, unless the authority decides to carry it into the next year’s account.

What the Report Does Not Tell Drivers

The published report leaves out several numbers a driver would want. It does not give the level of parking charges, the number of penalty charge notices issued, or the split of income between charges and fines. It does not give a reason for the change in the surplus from year to year, and the page carrying the report does not include Annex A, which contains the income and expenditure workings behind the £12.797 million figure.

It also does not state the 2024/25 surplus, so the only year on year comparison available from the documents is the one against 2023/24. A separate council document headed “Parking Surplus Account 2025/26” shows a budgeted car parking surplus line of £13,379,545, but the report does not explain how that budget figure relates to the final outturn.

Fairness is the angle most drivers take on parking income, and the document leaves part of that question open. The Act allows the money to flow to buses, roads and open spaces, and the council has shown it did so. What the document cannot show is whether the rise came from more cars parking, higher charges, more enforcement, or a change in how costs are counted.

What Drivers Can Do With This Information

The Milton Keynes report describes itself as a required annual review, so the same questions can be put to your own authority. The first step is to search the council’s committee or decision pages for its “parking account” or “parking surplus” report for 2025/26, which in Milton Keynes was published as a delegated decision on the council’s democratic services site.

When the report is not online, a Freedom of Information request to the council can ask for the on-street parking income, expenditure and surplus for the last three years, plus the number of penalty charge notices issued. Asking for the annexes alongside the covering report avoids the gap seen in Milton Keynes, where the summary page does not carry the workings.

Drivers who park in Central Milton Keynes can use the £12.797 million figure as a benchmark. Of the £15.395 million spent, the largest items were highways capital investment, concessionary fares and off street car parks, which tells residents which services the parking account is supporting in the current year. The council’s own report adds that the spending was set by the 2025/26 budget decision, with any surplus above budget used to cover costs incurred in the year.

For related coverage of how councils use parking income, see our report on Westminster’s £90.6 million parking haul, and our look at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal data on fines drivers won.

Sources

• Milton Keynes City Council: The Section 55 Traffic Regulation and Parking Account 2025/26
• Milton Keynes City Council: Use of the parking Surplus 2025/26
• Milton Keynes City Council: Parking Surplus Report 2023/24
• Milton Keynes City Council: Parking Surplus Account 2025/26
• legislation.gov.uk: Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, section 55