£268,000 of Wolverhampton parking fines not settled
Almost £270,000 was owed in parking fines to Wolverhampton City Council at the end of last year.
The shock figure comes just two months after the Express & Star revealed that £2 million in fines have been dished out over the last three years.
Figures obtained from a freedom of information request show that £268,164 was owed to the council and was still in the process of being recovered in November last year.
From 2013-14, 24,090 fines were issued, while 22,639 were handed out from 2014-15.
Between January and November last year, 13,813 fines were issued to illegal parkers.
Of these, 70 per cent of the off-street fines have been collected, and 67 per cent of the on-street ones have been paid.
Fines can vary from £50 for low level offences, and £70 for more serious breaches.
Offences which come under the less serious bracket include parking after the expiry of time paid for, not clearly displaying a valid pay-and-display ticket and not parking correctly within the markings of a place or bay.
Heftier fines are incurred for parking in a designated disabled bay without displaying a valid badge, parking or unloading/loading on a restricted street where a loading ban is in force and parking on a taxi rank.
The longer fines are left, the larger they get, and drivers can be taken to court over unpaid tickets.
Wolverhampton City Council claims its record for fine collection is better than a lot of comparable areas.
A spokesman said: "Our performance in collecting fines from illegal parking is better than many other towns and cities. 70 per cent of the parking fines issued in Wolverhampton get paid.
"Nowhere will ever collect 100 per cent because some owners are untraceable, some vehicles are registered abroad and some fines are successfully challenged.
"There is always a lag time between a parking fine being issued and payment being received. People pay at different stages in the process and obviously timescales are affected by people challenging their fine or in the case of a non-payment proceeding to court it can delay things by up to two years.
"If a fine has been correctly issued we will pursue it until it is paid no matter how long it takes."
