PROFITS from parking has netted Swindon Borough Council more than £16m in the past five years.

Figures submitted to the Department for Transport showed that in 2016/17, the council made a profit on parking of £3.45m, an increase of more than seven per cent compared to the £3.19m in 2015/16.

The parking-related profit is calculated by taking the total amount generated from permits, car parks, on-street parking and penalty charges, minus the amount spent on parking related expenditure.

No Swindon-specific figure is available for the amount spent on parking in the town last year, but across the country the amount rose by two per cent.

For cash-strapped councils, drivers continue to be a useful source of income. UK-wide, parking was worth a staggering £1.58bn.

But it isn’t all about taking away as all money raised through parking revenue is ploughed back into transport related schemes.

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: “Any revenue raised by Parking Services is spent on highways-related projects such as Shopmobility, public passenger transport services, highway improvements, maintenance and other environmental improvements

“Parking enforcement is not regarded as a money-making exercise and, in fact, there is clear guidance from central government to local authorities that it should not be seen as such.

“There are many reasons why we have parking regulations. These include improving the movement of traffic, pedestrians and cyclists; improving road safety; and improving the quality and accessibility or public transport.

“Tickets are only issued to drivers who park illegally and a well-established and independent appeals process is available to anyone who wants to challenge why they were given a ticket.”

A report by leading motoring organisation, the RAC, found that across the country there had been a 10 per cent rise in profits.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “The upward path in profits is in part a reflection of the record number of cars and volume of traffic.

“The silver lining for drivers is that these surpluses must almost exclusively be ploughed back into transport and as any motorist will tell you there is no shortage of work to be done.”

Swindon Borough Council recently revealed that parking officers would be deploying a new camera car to tackle parking trouble spots such as the areas outside schools.