Council spent £10,000 on parking charges in a year

Hackney Council spent more than £10,000 on parking penalties and charges over a 12-month period, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) can reveal.

Data on council payments below £250 obtained by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows employees spent a grand total of £10,253 on parking charges, enforcement and road penalty fines between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026.

Half the bill owed to TfL

Around half of this expenditure (£5,640) was to pay for 47 penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued by Transport for London (TfL) after staff flouted driving or parking rules. The local authority incurred an additional £4,613 on parking penalties, including from its own car parks.

Fines from a rival borough

Aside from TfL, the recipient of the largest amount in penalty charges was Waltham Forest Council, to which Hackney shelled out £3,100. Alongside this, the council made various smaller payments including £233 to UK Parking Control, £206 to ParkingEye and £160 to National Parking Enforcement.

On top of this, the council spent roughly £490 on routine parking payments and £850 in fees to TfL, such as for ULEZ and congestion charges.

The LDRS contacted the council several times but at the time of publication it had not provided any comment.

£11m collected, £10,000 spent

In the 2024/25 financial year, Hackney Council collected £11.3 million in revenue from PCNs and parking enforcement.