Penatly Charge Notice

We all hate parking tickets (or their technical name, which is Penalty Charge Notice - PCN).  Doesn't matter what it is for, we hate them. Paying even a penny for a PCN sucks and paying it is TOTALLY through gritted teeth.  So why do we have them?  Well it’s simple.  The clue is in the title, PENALTY.  They are a charge for committing a traffic offence under the Road Traffic Act 2005 (A full description of all PCNs that you can get are here)

Now for those of you that didn't read that link on what you can get a PCN for, they are for things such as parking on a double yellow line or being parked in a disabled bay when not a blue badge holders.  They are not for things which are pretty obvious, and which we all know are deep down wrong.  Now I am writing this having had to PCN in my life.  They sucked to pay but I paid them off IMMEDIATELY.  The thing is, thought, I didn't realise how far down the rabbit hole the PCN system worked.

When you get the PCN (and have paid it), where does the money go?  The money goes back to the council for them to use for road improvements. So it pays for things such as Zebra Crossings or other such road improvements.  Well that seems nice doesn't it?  Basically the money you are paying for a parking offence helps everyone.  Does'nt help you having to pay £277 to Westminster City council, thought, does it?

So the question is, why are there so many potholes and bad traffic problems?  Well is it because the council is stingy or couldn't care less?  Well no.  The council has a LOT of money to spend and has a lot of issues that it has to spend on.   So why don't they just use the money from their PCNs?  I mean they must make millions from them?  

Not so much. You see PCNs are issued to people who have done a park offence.  Council (In Wales) do not make that much money in comparison to their car parks.  Seriously.!  Due to FOI request I asked ALL the councils in wales for how much they made on PCNs AND how much they made on their car parks.  You see, councils make a LOT of money from their car parks.  In fact, they make more money from their car parks than from their PCNs.  

Being the man that I am, I asked for how much they all made. The results are below:

Name	Amount of PCN Issued	PCN Income	Car Park Income
Blaenau	NA
Bridgend	10047	261519	1441206
Caerphilly	NA		690160
Cardiff	81717	2614273	1028757.4
Carmarthenshire	12094	372941.28	2645639.03
Ceredigion	4048	129799.82	847546.42
Conway	13709
Denbighshire	Unknown
Flintshire		2982683.8	1202554.9
Gwynedd	10959	949149.2	1755956.52
Anglesey	969	23898
Merthyr Tydfil	5028	15306	247940.3
Monmouth	2666	66128	464870.4
Neath Port Talbot	11055
Newport	2378	£92,465.00	£247,940.30
Pembroke	13098	£398465
Powys	7321	195823.3	1038183.01
RCT	Unknown
Swansea	28988	£1,186,268.00	£3,514,182,

Torfaen	424	11100
Vale Of Glamorgan	6423	201842.18	£301,947.00
Wrexham	4089	85317	579059

Now as you can see there is a lot more money being made from the car park than from the PCN.  

Now this shocked me because I would have thought that the council would have throwing money at the PCN as they are a way for making what is relatively easy way of making money.    Not only that the thing that REALLY shocked me was that the City of Westminster  (CoW) HAS MORE PCNS IN ONE STREET THAN MOST COUNCILS HAVE IN A YEAR!  Think of this, CoW PCNs START at 65 and progress up to 195 (before they go to  Northampton County Court)

This is not the whole of the story, however.  Just after finishing the Table above, I started to think, how much does it cost to maintain the car parks?  How much is spent on Civil Enforcement Officers (CEO’s)?  Because they will impact on how much is made for the council. Now after getting the responses back, ALL councils in Wales spend MORE on their CEO's than their car parks. IN other words it COSTS to have CEO's...  SO why have them?  Its because they are there to make sure that routes are clear for ambulances, disabled spots are used for disabled badge holders and so forth.

Remember that a council is like any organisation in that they make money and spend money.  The thing that is the most important is how they spend the money and where they get that money from. You see the thing that is the most interesting here is that fact that the thing that we hate, is it actually something that benefits the council (And in turn us) or is it something that HAS to happen?  An interesting turn of events.

Additional - If there are any errors they are PURELY my own.  I may have made some mistakes but nothing that would show anything too major.