Revealed: 50% rise in parking tickets as Bucks Council nets £1.4million from fines

Monday, 8 January 2024 07:00

By Charlie Smith - Local Democracy Reporter

The number of parking tickets issued by Buckinghamshire Council surged by more than 50 per cent in 2023, it can be revealed.

Some 49,319 penalty charge notices (PCNs) were handed to drivers last year compared to 31,851 in 2022.

The council raked in a whopping of £1,409,383.93 from the fines, according to figures obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service under the Freedom of Information Act.

The unitary authority denied parking fines were a cash cow, saying they were a way to regulate parking that negatively affects residents and businesses.

Bucks Council claimed its income from PCNs was invested back into different areas, including transport, the environment, parking services and the maintenance of car parks.

Steven Broadbent, the council’s cabinet member for transport said: “We have issued more PCNs during 2023 than we did in 2022.

“This is purely down to the number of contraventions and is not something the council controls or that is linked to our budgets.

“We have continued to see traffic levels increase year on year which in turn impacts on the number of parking violations that occur.”

The cabinet member also said that the higher number of PCNs issued by the council compared to other authorities was “down to location and road use”.

He added: “We are a very large county area with an extensive road network, high population, high road usage and a number of busy towns so we will naturally see higher numbers of parking violations.”