“Can we reasonably tell our residents there’s a direct loop between getting a parking ticket and it being reinvested?”Some £23.7m was raked in from parking fines last year(Image: Mark Waugh Manchester Press Photography Ltd)

Manchester council has made a promise to motorists after a new report revealed how much parking fines earned last year.

The authority collected £23.7m in fines last year, and earned another £16.8m from the start of this financial year to the end of September.

A new report said 600,153 parking penalties were issued by council officers last year, or more than one every minute.

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Last year’s revenue was used to pay for enforcing parking rules, with the £8.4m surplus paid into a reserve, the report added.

And Coun Richard Kilpatrick, who represents West Didsbury, said the ‘not insignificant’ £16.8m takings so far this year should be reinvested into the city’s roads.

“Residents have things they want fixed and they are told there’s no money,” he told the council’s resource scrutiny committee.

“It says £7.1m [was expected to] go to the reserve. It should be that there is a mechanism to reinvest that into the highway. It’s important for residents.

“Can we reasonably tell our residents there’s a direct loop between getting a parking ticket and it being reinvested?”

That led a top council officer to make a promise to motorists. City treasurer Tom Wilkinson said: “Ideally we would not get any fines income because everyone is compliant.

Manchester council’s parking practices have hit the headlines earlier this year after TikToker Zoe Bread complained this sign was misleading(Image: Copyright Unknown)

“If we were budgeting that we would get any fines income, that would be unethical. So any surplus is put into reserves.

“That can be drawn down to highways improvements. It’s recycled, 100pc, as required by statute.”

The largest category of parking fines were for ‘on-street- infringement, with 215,385 fines issued, with 14,544 being cancelled after an appeal.

Another major category was breaches of residents’ parking schemes, with 119,081 penalties, although 5,610 were cancelled after an appeal.

The 177,000 bus lane fines was ‘a reduction’, the report said, due to the ‘Bridge Street Bus Gate stabilising’ and drivers getting used to the new rule. Last year, Manchester council secured powers to police ‘moving traffic offences’ at six junctions, and the authority handed out 47,000 fines for breaking rules like entering a yellow box when prohibited.

The most-successfully-appealed category was off-street parking, when more than half of the 13,080 appeals were upheld, because motorists who put their number plate into a machine incorrectly will have their ticket cancelled if they ‘provide proof of the error’ and they ‘paid for a parking session in good faith’.