Very few things in life will strike fear into the heart of drivers up and down the country quite like returning to your vehicle and spotting that little yellow plastic parking ticket stuck to your windscreen.
You were definitely only gone for 5 minutes, but they still managed to catch you anyway.
Whatever the situation, getting a parking ticket is a frustrating experience and an expense you just don’t need.
While you should probably try and park in the right places and at the right times, you can take an extra precaution by avoiding some of the UK’s parking ticket blackspots, including the street named as the worst for parking fines.
The worst street in the UK for parking fines
That honour goes to the world-famous Shaftesbury Avenue in the centre of London’s theatre district.
A hugely popular destination for musical lovers, shoppers, and tourists alike, the street saw over 5,000 parking fines handed out in just 3 months.
Date obtained by a freedom of information act by comparethemarket.com revealed that 5,708 tickets were given to illegally parked cars on Shaftesbury Avenue between July and September this year.
Those 5,000 plus tickets cost drivers nearly £400,000 in total fines – an amount far more than any other street in the UK and even more than some cities.
The total amount of tickets handed out on Shaftesbury Avenue was almost double the amount given in the whole of the city of Oxford over the same time.
10 cities with the most amount of parking tickets
As the home of the UK’s parking fine blackspot, it won’t come as much surprise that London tops the list of UK cities handing out the most number of fines. In that same 3-month period, the English capital saw 549,009 notices given which made local authorities a whopping £24m in revenue.
Scotland’s two largest cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow make up the top 3 with the capital issuing 58,994 fines. While it’s a small percentage of those handed out in London, it’s still almost double the amount given in any other city.
While St Vincent Street is the place to avoid in Glasgow, the city overall saw over 30,000 fines given between July and September.
Birmingham, Leeds, Wolverhampton, and Newcastle also featured in the top 10. The full list, including the specific streets with the largest number of fines, can be found below.
- London 549,009 – Shaftesbury Avenue, Westminster.
- Edinburgh 58,994 – George Street.
- Glasgow 33,693 – St Vincent Street.
- Birmingham 32,991 – Alum Rock Road.
- Leeds 23,734 – South Parade, Central.
- Wolverhampton 22,961 – Victoria Square bus lane.
- Newcastle upon Tyne 19,815 – Dean Street multi-storey car park.
- Liverpool 18,948 – Prescot Street.
- Bradford 14,362 – Piccadilly.
- Sheffield 13,360 – Ecclesall Road.
If you take an average parking fine of £70 (although it can be as much as £140 in central London) the top 10 cities in the UK raised over £55m in parking fine revenue during that 3-month period – that equates to over £220m in a calendar year.
Remember to ensure you’re parked in the correct area and that your parking ticket is displayed so that it can be seen easily by any parking wardens to avoid these annoying parking fines.
It’s always better to pay for an extra hour on the pay & display than get a yellow sticker on your windscreen and a £70 plus fine.
