UK Councils lose at least £41.3M (71%) in parking fine income during the lockdown

LeaseFetcher has done extensive research on the impact of COVID-19 on the earnings of UK councils from the parking fees. Lockdown has significantly changed our lives and our economy. A lot of companies have even declared bankruptcy. For most people, lockdowns meant a change in daily life and there is an upside too. 

We had more free time and fewer expenses because we didn’t have to commute. People had more time to spend with their families and prepare healthy meals, so it can be counted as a benefit. The long term effect of the lockdown on our economy will be felt by everyone. In this research, we compared the earnings of UK councils during the lockdown with the same period from previous years. 

Largest Cities (Including London)

We analyzed the data separately for 20 of the largest UK cities and 23 of the London Boroughs – when this data is combined, the figures are astounding.

If we compare the income of all these councils during the lockdown and before, we can estimate the loss of a little over £41 million.

Largest Cities (Excluding London)

In this part of the analysis, we excluded London to see what is the situation in the rest of the country. All councils in the UK have suffered a great loss in revenue. 

The largest losses are recorded in the period from April to June. In that time frame, the largest UK cities (excluding London) recorded an 82.5% decrease in earnings compared with the same period in 2019. 

If we look more closely at the details we can see that May had the largest drop (89.3%). After June and with slight ease in restrictions, PCN income started to rise. During that period we recorded a 71.1% drop in revenue. 

Of the individual cities, Leicester had the greatest loss with a 99.21% drop in their income. On the other hand, Birmingham had lost the least money. Their drop was the smallest in the whole UK with a drop of just 68.1% in total. 

London

We looked at London separately to see how the results compare to the rest of the country.  The research combined the data feathered separately in 23 of the London Boroughs.

London lost close to £32 million during the lockdown compared to the same period last year. 

Will PCN income bounce back?

In the UK and in the rest of the world we can see that easing of the restrictions directly correlates with revenues going back to normal. So any business including the PCS will return to normal if they manage not to bankrupt during the crises. 

Methodology

Using Freedom of Information requests, we obtained the total income from PCNs (for both on and off-street parking) for these areas, broken down by month from January 2019 to June 2020.

*Data was not available for Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sunderland, Barnet, Bexley, Croydon, Lewisham and City of London.