York Council Made £10 Million from Parking but Spent Just £5 Million on Roads

City of York Council’s latest accounts show parking charges brought in more than £11 million last year, nearly £900,000 above what the council had budgeted for. After staffing and maintenance costs, that left a net surplus of £10.2 million earmarked for transport projects. Yet only £5 million of that total went on highways, and just £840,000 of it was spent repairing potholes.

Drivers paying some of the highest parking tariffs of any English city outside London might reasonably assume that money goes straight back into the roads they drive on. The council’s own finance and performance report tells a different story.

The report is not a leak or a campaign document. It is York Council’s own routine annual accounting, filed through its public democracy portal alongside minutes, agendas and budget papers that any resident can read. What makes it striking is simply how rarely drivers stop to check what happens after they feed a machine or tap a card at a car park barrier, and how far the answer sits from the assumption most people carry around with them.

Where £10.2 Million Actually Went

According to York Council’s 2025-26 finance and performance outturn report, published through its democracy portal, the £10.2 million transport surplus split three ways. Five million pounds went on highways work, including street lighting, with £840,000 of that used specifically for pothole repairs. The remaining £5.2 million was split between subsidising concessionary bus fares and services, at a cost of £4.5 million, and covering interest payments on the council’s borrowing.

In other words, well over half of the surplus raised from parking charges did not go toward roads, potholes or anything a driver paying the charge would directly experience. It went to prop up bus subsidies and pay down debt interest, both legitimate uses of transport reserve funds under section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, but not the use most drivers would expect when they feed a machine or pay for a permit.

The Bus Subsidy Isn’t Working Either

The justification for spending parking income on public transport is that it should shift people out of cars. York’s own figures suggest that isn’t happening. Park-and-ride journeys rose only modestly, from 3.78 million to 3.88 million, still far below where they stood a decade ago. Regular bus passenger numbers actually fell, from 7.69 million to 7.43 million, across the first three quarters of the financial year. That drop came in spite of £4.5 million of parking income being used to keep fares down and services running.

Meanwhile, overall traffic levels across York continued to decline anyway, a trend the council’s own data confirms is unconnected to the parking surplus or the bus subsidy. Fewer cars are on York’s roads today than a decade ago, even as parking charges and enforcement have both increased.

Paying Off Debt With Parking Fees

The interest payments line is the part drivers are least likely to expect. York Council, like most local authorities, has borrowed heavily over the past decade to fund capital projects, from housing to leisure centres to highway schemes themselves. That borrowing carries an annual interest bill, and section 55 permits councils to use ringfenced parking surplus to help cover it, as long as the underlying capital spending it services is transport-related.

The practical effect is that a driver paying to park in York’s city centre today could be helping to service debt taken out years ago for a scheme they never used and will likely never benefit from. The council’s outturn report does not break down exactly how much of the £5.2 million balance went to bus subsidies versus debt interest, only that the two together made up the remainder after highway spending. That level of detail, one step short of full transparency, is where most councils’ parking accounts stop.

A Pattern Repeated Across England

York is not an outlier. Councils in England collectively made close to £1.1 billion from parking in the last reported financial year, and the pattern of surplus income drifting away from visible road improvements and into wider council budgets is a recurring one. What makes York’s case unusual is the transparency: the council’s own outturn report breaks the figures down enough for residents to see exactly where their money went, rather than a single vague “transport improvements” line.

That transparency cuts both ways. It shows the council spent within the legal framework governing parking surpluses. It also shows, in cold figures, that drivers funding an £11 million parking operation got back less than half in anything resembling road maintenance, while the rest quietly covered costs the council would have to meet regardless of how much parking income came in.

York’s report includes one further detail that complicates the usual argument for higher parking charges and stricter enforcement. Traffic levels across the city kept falling over the reporting period, a trend the council itself notes runs counter to claims that motorists are driving more. Fewer cars on the road, alongside rising parking income, points to charges climbing well past the level needed simply to manage demand for spaces. A scheme built to fund itself and cover its own running costs has, on York’s own figures, grown into something that raises considerably more than it needs.

None of this makes York’s spending unlawful. Every pound in the £10.2 million surplus sits within categories the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 permits. The gap is between what the law allows and what a driver paying a rising parking tariff reasonably expects that money to fund. Most people assume a parking charge pays for the space they used and the road they drove on to reach it. York’s own figures show that assumption holds for well under half of what the council actually collects.

What You Can Do

Every English council with on-street or off-street parking charges is legally required to publish an annual parking account showing income, costs and how any surplus was spent, under guidance issued alongside the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Search “[your council] parking annual account” or check your council’s transparency or democracy pages. Most authorities publish these as PDF reports similar to York’s, usually released in the summer following the end of the financial year in March.

If your council does not publish a breakdown as detailed as York’s, submit a Freedom of Information request asking specifically how much surplus parking income was raised in the last financial year, and a full breakdown of what it funded. Councils have 20 working days to respond and are required to hold this information: section 55 obliges them to ringfence and account for it separately from general council spending.

If you believe your council is spending parking surplus on anything outside the categories permitted under section 55, such as general council overheads unrelated to transport, you can challenge this. The 2013 High Court case Attfield v London Borough of Barnet found against a council for setting parking charges to raise revenue beyond what was needed to cover the cost of the scheme itself, a precedent that remains available to residents who believe their council has crossed the same line.

Finally, when your council consults on new or increased parking charges, as most now do through a formal Traffic Regulation Order process, use the consultation window to ask directly what the money will fund. Councils must formally weigh every objection raised in these consultations, and specific questions about where surplus income has historically gone are hard for a council to avoid answering on the public record.

Ask your council to publish a per-scheme breakdown, not just a citywide total. York’s outturn report shows this level of detail is possible when a council chooses to provide it. A single councillor, resident association or local newspaper pressing for the same transparency elsewhere can turn a vague annual total into a genuine account of where parking income goes street by street.

Sources:

• York News Focus: York council’s £10 million parking profit raises questions over spending priorities
• City of York Council: 2025-26 Finance and Performance Outturn report