More than £1 million earned by North Northamptonshire Council’s car parks last year

More than £1 million was earned by North Northamptonshire Council’s car parks last year, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

This comes as changes are to be made to the cost of parking in the council’s country parks due to increased costs of running the parks and inflationary pressures.

NNC manages 27 free car parks and 13 paid within the county - including its five country parks.

The authority says the money made is spent on the maintenance and provision of all of its parking, as well as the country parks themselves.

We asked the council to share a list of its most lucrative car parks from January to December 2023.

The biggest money-making car parks were both in Kettering, in London Road and Wadcroft. They earned £209,500 and £191,894 respectively across the whole of 2023.

London Road charges a minimum £1 parking fee for one hour, while Wadcroft’s minimum spend is £1.50 for up to two hours. Both sites charge £6 for anyone parking on their premises for over five hours.

Country parks also appeared to be a key player for the council, with Irchester and Sywell Country Park taking the next two spots. Each car park accrued £186,513 and £181,020 in total for the year.

All country parks in North Northamptonshire charge the same base rates for daily parking, reaching a maximum of £7.20 for a stay over 12 hours, however rates are set to change. Annual parking passes, which can cover one named park or all four parks for a higher price, are also available to buy.

Just nabbing its place in the top five, Parklands Gateway in Corby added a massive £124,798 to North Northamptonshire’s funding pot. Prices range from as little as 60p for up to two hours to £10 for six hours and over.

The top five alone brought in a combined total sum of £893,725 for the authority, however only £26,629 went back into the sites for maintenance and running costs in that same period. Across all council-owned car parks in North Northants in 2023 a staggering £1,347,521 was made.

Jason Smithers, council leader, said: “The council owns and manages numerous public car parks, some of which provide free parking and others that provide pay and display parking.

“The total expenditure by the council in relation to its car parking budgets in the financial year 2022/23 was £1,174,383 and the total income generated from its car parks was £1,578,120.

"This income includes that generated in country parks which is used to fund the maintenance and provision of the parks themselves including the maintenance, habitat management and park staff.

“The council is developing a parking strategy for council-owned car parks, which will consider a range of improvements to our car parks, and consider the current charging regime and changes to it.”

Charges for parking in the country parks will also increase this year due to inflationary pressures.

NNC said the changes will be brought in from April 1, by removing the banded charges and increasing the basic charge from £3.20 to a flat fee of £3.50.

According to the 2024/25 budget, this will result in a massive £20,000 of savings for the local authority.

Cllr Smithers said: “The rationale for this is to accommodate the increased cost of providing the parks resulting from inflationary pressures but also to simplify the charges and reduce delays at the machines caused by visitors having to select from multiple tariffs and to use an easy coinage as a significant proportion of visitors still use cash at the machines.”