Date published: 2005/08/30
The Cambridge Evening News says:
Parking fees and fines cost motorists more than £8 million in Cambridge last year.
The total income from parking in the city was £8,147,000 between April 2004 and April this year, with the majority - more than £6 million - coming from Cambridge City Council-run car parks.
The figure - obtained by the News through the Freedom of Information Act - is slightly lower than the previous year as more than £300,000 was lost in January, February and March following the demolition of 650 parking spaces at Lion Yard car park in the new year.
But the loss was matched by an extra £276,000 from Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), or parking tickets, after the council took over parking enforcement from the police in October.
Paul Necus, the council's head of parking services, said: "It isn't the case we do this to make a profit.
"There's a common misconception we're just in this for the money and parking attendants are chasing targets - but that's simply not the case."
But shoppers and retailers said the council's parking policy was "greedy", and warned exorbitant fees in the city's car parks were putting visitors off.
When you have a monopoly service you have abuse. The city might not be "chasing targets" over parking enforcement (although there have been several examples recently of idiotic enforcement) but it is definitely the case that the city is just doing it "for the money" as far as parking charges are concerned. Break up the monopoly and we'll see prices fall. But funnily enough governments are not too concerned about monopolies that they themselves run.
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