Manchester City Council topped the national list, pulling in a staggering £14.6 million after issuing 365,031 PCNs in 2024. That's 1,000 parking tickets every single day. Meanwhile, Ealing Council made £5,716,120 from issuing 142,903 PCNs in 2024, a sharp rise from £4.4 million in 2023. That's a 30 percent revenue increase in twelve months.
The number of PCNs issued in London has increased by around 70 percent since 2010, from 4.8 million in 2009-10 to 8.3 million in 2023-24. Eight point three million tickets. In one year. In one city. The scale is staggering.
The April 7 Hammer Blow
On April 7, 2025, the cost of being issued with a PCN rose by up to 37.5 percent across London. For the first time in 14 years, London boroughs raised parking and traffic penalty charges. Higher level charges in Band A areas rose from £130 to £160, while Band B areas saw an increase from £110 to £140. Lower level charges in Band A rose from £80 to £110, and Band B rose from £60 to £90.
That's not inflation adjustment. That's a 23 percent jump for serious violations and a 37.5 percent increase for minor ones. The changes were approved by the Mayor of London and came after a decision by London Councils Transport and Environment Committee. Councils claim with some PCN levels having been unchanged for 14 years and others for 18 years, charge levels were not high enough to encourage compliance.
Westminster earns the most in parking fines of any London borough, bringing in over £45 million per year. That's one borough. Forty five million pounds. From parking violations.
The Technology Driving the Revenue Surge
The council monitors Controlled Parking Zones more efficiently using automatic number plate recognition, which can also check the validity of disabled badges. ANPR cameras capture everything. No traffic warden needed. No human judgment involved. Just cameras, algorithms, and automated penalty notices.
Some boroughs, like Camden and Islington, are trialing AI based enforcement using smart lampposts. The surveillance expands. The technology improves. The tickets multiply.
According to the council, the reason for the increase in PCNs issued is a combination of better technology and more enforcement where parking is prohibited or dangerous. Better technology. Translation: ANPR systems that never sleep, never miss a violation, never give warnings, and generate revenue 24 hours daily.
Private Parking Adds Billions More
Council fines are just half the story. Private parking firms in England are on track to issue a record breaking 14.5 million PCNs in 2025, which is expected to generate over £1.4 billion in fines. Government data shows that more than 4.3 million tickets were issued by private firms between April and June 2025, representing a 24 percent rise on the same period last year. That equates to 48,000 tickets every day, generating as much as £4.8 million in charges.
Fourteen point five million private parking tickets. Plus eight point three million council tickets in London alone. Plus millions more from councils nationwide. The combined total easily exceeds 30 million parking penalties annually across the UK.
The Industrial Action Response
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham called out Ealing Council for the increase, saying "Greener Ealing and Ealing Council aren't just union busting, they're putting workers in danger while ripping off residents". Traffic wardens in Ealing have been on strike since March 12 over allegations of ticketing targets and rip-off charges, something the council denies.
Unite says that since industrial action began, four wardens have been sacked on trumped up charges while taking strike action, however, Greener Ealing has denied this. The allegations suggest councils pressure enforcement officers to meet quotas. Councils deny quotas exist. The revenue keeps climbing regardless.
Where the Money Goes (Allegedly)
Any money raised by PCNs cannot go into councils' general funds for any purpose. Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure any net revenue raised by PCNs is reinvested in traffic and transport schemes. In London this includes paying for the Freedom Pass providing free public transport for 1.2 million older and disabled Londoners.
That sounds reasonable until you realize the Freedom Pass costs £350 million a year and London councils collected significantly more than that from parking enforcement. The surplus funds transport improvements, road maintenance, and enforcement infrastructure. More cameras. More ANPR. More traffic wardens. More tickets. The system funds its own expansion.
The Appeals Are Pointless
With over 8.3 million parking tickets given out last year, that's a huge amount of money collected from drivers. When you find that dreaded yellow ticket on your windshield, you can challenge the fine with the council and later with an independent tribunal. In theory.
Last year, Croydon Council cancelled penalty charge notices for more than 3,000 people because of an admin error, costing the council £150,000. Three thousand wrongly issued tickets. In one borough. In one year. Inside Croydon has been receiving reports that similar errors, where a final demand is issued when no initial PCN notice is sent out, has been happening again.
The system generates so many tickets that errors become inevitable. But proving an error requires time, effort, documentation, and persistence most drivers don't have. Easier to pay the fine, even if it's wrong, than fight bureaucracy for months.
What Changed
Milton Keynes saw parking fine revenue increase from £796,096 in April 2023 to March 2024, representing a 29.7 percent increase from the previous year. Stirling Council made £508,090 from parking fines from September 2024 to August 2025, an increase of just over £12,000 from the previous twelve month period. Every council tells the same story. Revenue climbing. Enforcement intensifying. Technology expanding.
According to London's transport authorities, the rationale for the fine hike is straightforward: deterrence is no longer working. Parking fines in London haven't changed since 2011. Over time, the value of those penalties eroded due to inflation. With many drivers opting to risk a fine over paying for expensive legal parking, compliance has decreased.
So councils respond by raising fines 37.5 percent and deploying more cameras. The logic is circular. Compliance is down because parking is expensive and enforcement is everywhere. Therefore, make fines more expensive and add more enforcement. Problem solved, assuming the problem was insufficient revenue rather than insufficient parking or predatory enforcement.
The Bottom Line
Manchester: £14.6 million. Westminster: £45 million. Ealing: £5.7 million. London total: hundreds of millions from 8.3 million tickets. Private parking firms: £1.4 billion from 14.5 million penalties. Add council revenues from across the entire UK and the total comfortably exceeds £2 billion annually extracted from motorists for parking violations.
Higher level PCNs now carry a fine of £160, up from £130. Lower level PCNs now carry a fine of £110, up from £80. If you pay your PCN within 14 days, you'll still receive a 50 percent discount, but even that discounted amount has increased. The early payment discount dropped from £65 to £80 for serious violations. That's £15 more for the privilege of paying quickly.
Councils claim the money funds transport improvements and services like the Freedom Pass. Traffic wardens allege quotas and pressure. Drivers report admin errors and wrongful tickets. Meanwhile, ANPR cameras multiply, AI enforcement arrives, and the revenue keeps climbing. The war on motorists continues. The latest weapon? Fines that jumped 37.5 percent overnight while councils insist it's about safety, not money. Nobody believes them anymore.