BOURNEMOUTH and Poole are among the top councils for car parking revenue, according to new figures released today.

Figures analysed by the RAC Foundation show the vast majority of local authorities in England generate a surplus from their parking activities.

Bournemouth ranked 39 of 359 councils, with a surplus of £3,430,000 in 2011/12, although it was down from £5,201,000 in 2009/10.

Poole was 56 of 359, with a surplus of £2,540,000 in 2011/12, down from £2,676,000 in 2009/10.

The RAC Foundation said that, in 2011-12, English councils had a total current account surplus of £565 million from their on and off street parking activities.

This figure is a £54 million increase on the £511 million surplus seen in 2010-11.

Even where huge ‘profits’ are absent, the picture is still largely one of surplus rather than deficit with just 52 of the 359 councils reporting negative numbers.

And even after capital charges are taken into account, the surplus in 2011-12 was still £412 million, it said.

The data, studied for the RAC Foundation by David Leibling, comes from the annual returns that councils make to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The authority with the biggest income is Westminster Council in London which made a surplus of £41.6 million in 2011-12.

The huge sums being made from local authority parking are revealed just days after a judge declared that Barnet Council had acted illegally in trying to set charges to raise general revenue, rather than as part of its traffic management plan.

Cllr Xena Dion, portfolio holder for transportation, Borough of Poole, said: "In the current economic climate, parking charges are a particularly sensitive issue, which can have an adverse impact on people’s decisions to come to Poole.

"We regularly review our parking charges to ensure we meet the needs of visitors and businesses, and recently reintroduced the hourly rate at our Shopping Centre multi-storey car parks following requests from businesses.

"Poole is one of the lowest-funded unitary authorities in the country and we continue to have the lowest council tax in Dorset.

"In terms of supporting our local businesses, while we can understand the desire for our charges to be as low as possible, it has to be recognised that this income is an essential part of the council’s finances.

"Getting the correct balance in this area is essential and we hope that our ongoing strategic car parking review will assist this process."

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “For many local authorities, parking charges are a nice little earner, especially in the Capital.

“Not all authorities make big sums. Several run a current account deficit and indeed of those with surpluses many will see the money vanish when capital expenditure is taken into account.

“But the bottom line is that hundreds of millions of pounds are being contributed annually to council coffers through parking charges and the drivers who are paying them have a reasonable expectation to see the cash spent on improving the roads.

“In fact it is enshrined in law – as underlined by the Barnet case last week – that profits gained from on street charges and penalties must be ploughed back into a very limited number of things including maintaining the roads.”

AA President Edmund King said: “A predicted rise of £34m in parking income, at almost double the rate of inflation, for local authorities in 2013/14 is shocking. Families and business are struggling with high fuel prices and the towns and cities that want their business are unnecessarily ramping up parking profits which ultimately damages trade and the local economy.

“In an AA Populus poll, 81 per cent said the cost of parking was an important factor when considering a trip into town. The greedy local authorities need to recognise that local economies can be boosted by attracting car-borne shoppers who have money to spend. But, ripping them off before they even set foot in local businesses could mean that, next time, those customers will go elsewhere.

“It is time tariffs were reduced and not increased as has been happening. Tightening the parking price screw into the evenings and at weekends in the name of traffic management is a growing trend and is more about pumping up revenue than visits.”

Mike Holmes, Service Director for Planning & Transport, said: 

“Income generated from car parking in Bournemouth is ring fenced and reinvested back into the road network and parking service. This amount has enabled us to invest £3million over recent years in projects such as Road Rescue which has delivered large scale road resurfacing schemes, as well as over 6500 pothole repairs across Bournemouth.

“Compared to other towns and cities parking in Bournemouth continues to be very competitively priced.  We have frozen parking charges for the last three years across the majority of the town’s car parks, as well as implemented a wide range of parking offers in and around the town centre at convenient locations.  For example, the Council offers 2 hours parking for just £1 at the majority of car parks.”