THE £220,000 owed to Luton Borough Council in unpaid parking fines is being “actively pursued”, according to a spokesman for the authority.
Over the past five years, a total of 29,000 parking tickets have gone unpaid in Luton, with the figure leaping from 709 unpaid tickets in 2006/7 to 6,237 in 2007/8.
The figure peaked in 2008/9 with 8,348 penalty charge notices ignored, with the number dropping to 7,151 in 2009/10 and 6,583 in 2010/111.
The number of tickets issued by the council’s 23 traffic wardens has been steadily decreasing as well, from 42,000 tickets issued in 2006/7 to 32,000 issued last year.
The revenue raised by the council from parking tickets is over a million pounds a year, with £1,021,354 in income from motorists in 2010/11.
The Luton News asked which streets had seen the highest numbers of motorists receiving tickets, but the council said a “significant part” of this data had been archived, and that retrieving it would cost the authority money.
Appealing against parking tickets has been a successful venture for more than 17,000 motorists in the past five years, with 2,430 successful challenges in 2010/11 and more than 3,000 the previous year.
The council says it follows a decriminalised statutory process for pursuing unpaid tickets.
A spokesman said: “The council actively pursues the recovery of outstanding parking charges which includes registering debts at the county court and issuing warrants instructing bailiffs to recover outstanding debt.
“This is obviously much more costly for the vehicle owner, so we emphasise these extra costs as part of our written correspondence to encourage prompt payment of charges.
“We will continue to recover debt through the county court and bailiffs when necessary.”