The M.E.N can today reveal Manchester’s top 20 parking ticket blackspots.
We have analysed details of every one of more 116,355 fines handed out in the city in a period of just over 10 months.
The Bridge Street car park near Spinningfields is the most heavily-ticketed area – with a staggering 2,827 penalty charge notices dished out at an average of more than nine a day.
Withy Grove, near the Printworks, was second with 2,343.
There were 2,333 fines imposed on vehicles on Wilmslow Road, which runs between Whitworth Park in the south of the city centre and Didsbury.
And city centre King Street was fourth with 1,877 fines.
Details of every single ticket issued in Manchester between August 8, 2009 and June 16, 2010 were released under Freedom Of Information laws.
The total of 116,355 is the equivalent of more than 11,000 a month – more than 370 a day.
All of the most-ticketed streets were in the city centre – apart from Wilmslow Road and Stockport Road, which runs between Ardwick and Levenshulme.
Some of the most-ticketed streets were to the south and west of the city centre – with St John Street, Mount Street, Chester Street, Dickinson Street, Byrom Street, Princess Street and Whitworth Street West all in the top 20.
Thomas Street and Tib Street in the Northern Quarter were also near the top of the list.
In the financial year 2009/10, Manchester council’s parking services received over £8m in revenue from parking tickets.
Parking wardens gave out a total of 127,342 tickets – the sixth-highest number in the country.
Most tickets were paid within 14 days at the discounted rate of £35 for more serious contraventions such as parking on double-yellow lines, or £25 for offences such as overstaying at a pay-and-display bay. Two in ten were paid at the full rate of £70 or £50.
But more than 32,000 tickets remained unpaid on October 1, 2010. This was because drivers appealed or, in nearly 2,000 cases, tickets were written off ‘due to admin error, motorist untraceable or debt seemed to be uncollectable’.
Coun Nigel Murphy said: “Our job is to ensure traffic flows freely and we regularly receive complaints from motorists, cyclists, bus operators and people using public transport about people who park selfishly along these routes, causing congestion.
“However, our parking officers cover the whole of the city, as can be seen by the fact that the number tickets issued at these 10 locations amount to less than 20 per cent of the total issued.”
| Ranking | Street name | No of tickets |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bridge Street Car Park (Off Bridge Street) | 2827 |
| 2 | Withy Grove | 2343 |
| 3 | Wilmslow Road | 2333 |
| 4 | King Street West | 1877 |
| 5 | St John Street | 1790 |
| 6 | Mount Street | 1574 |
| 7 | Chester Street | 1559 |
| 8 | Stockport Road | 1492 |
| 9 | Thomas Street | 1487 |
| 10 | Dickinson Street | 1426 |
| 11 | Byrom Street | 1425 |
| 12 | George Street | 1413 |
| 13 | Princess Street | 1390 |
| 14 | Lloyd Street | 1384 |
| 15 | Liverpool Road | 1241 |
| 16 | Peter Street | 1207 |
| 17 | Whitworth Street West | 1198 |
| 18 | Tib Street | 1165 |
| 19 | Spring Gardens | 1130 |
| 20 | Dover Street | 1092 |
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I fully support this as its a nightmare trying to drive up some of these roads congested by inconsiderate and illegal car parking.
I love that glaring hypocrisy "Our job is to ensure traffic flows freely".
Not my experience of local authority. Just the opposite. I'm not condoning illegal parking, but I suppose they could hardly say they like the revenue.
nice earner. park legally and you should not get a ticket
On average in a lifetime we spend some 24 thousand pounds driving round looking for a parking space
"DRIVERS ARE MADE TO PAY". Quite an alarming headline. But we read on to find that it is simply offenders who have contravened parking regulations who are made to pay, and seemingly, not all of them bother. I do not feel that in a city the size of Manchester, 370 parking tickets a day is an enormous amount. This is a non story!
dont worry, the way the council are going manchester city centre will have less people in it because of the charges for parking and ticketing regime, and the trafford centre will be quids in
Don't quite understand what your point is MEN. It's quite simple, don't park illegally and you won't get a ticket. In 20 years of driving I have never had a parking ticket because I never park where I shouldn't. The council should be commended for catching so many people. I don't care if you take two minutes or two hours, it's your choice if you park illegally and if you get caught, cough up and stop moaning
Any of these tickets given to GiMP VECHICLES, parking on double yellow lines..........?? thought not !!!
Lets be logical and fair about this. I parked my car on double yellow lines, knowing the risk, about 5 years ago in Bolton centre, just for literally 2 minutes. As I got back to my car a traffic warden was putting a ticket on my car. I didn't fly into a rage and go complaining to the paper. I was adult about it, accepted it was my fault, paid the £30 (£60 after 14 days) fine the same day and learn't a lesson. Funny really, I haven't parked on a double or single yellow since and therefore I haven't had a parking ticket since. Simples! People that complain are those that have been caught and probably repeatedly. Traffic Warden's have a job to do the same as you or I. Let them get on with it. Is the sake of as little as 30 pence in some instances worth getting a possible £80 fine.
I wish they'd go down Polygon Road outside King David School. On schooldays cars are parked on the pavements down both side of the street making it impossible for pedestrians to pass without walking in the road. But the area is unticketed day after day.
I wonder how much staff time it took to analyse 116,355 tickets (every one) to come up with tis very informative piece of investigative journalism.
MEN could you give us a complete breakdown of :-
1.time takem to analyse each ticket
2.cost of analysis of each ticket
3.cost of computer time etc etc etc
I think that would make a really interesting story as well YYYYYAAAAAAWWWWNNNN!!!!
They want to get themselves down Grey Mare Lane on market days. The double yellows are full of cars every time.
They can't all be disabled - and some of them must be stall holders, because there only seems to be about 20 people on that market at any one time.
Did any police Vans parked on Double Yellow lines get any tickets or is that just a stupid question.
I wish people wouldn’t refer to them as traffic wardens,
Traffic wardens existed some years ago before the local authorities took over street parking.
They were controlled by the police, and were able to deal with general traffic problems other than just parking. If cars were parked legally but still causing an obstruction they could take action, even if that action only involved getting the driver to move the car.
In my experience they were much fairer in their approach to parking than the modern wardens and displayed a degree of discretion.
Wardens today are only concerned with the issuing of tickets and fines to illegal parkers and have no remit to deal with other matters.
For example, I have watched a warden ignore two cars, parked on either side of a road so that the road was restricted to one lane, causing traffic to jam. They were ignored because there were no yellow lines there.
I am all in favour of ticketing illegal parking but I am sure that there are endless examples where a little discretion would no go amiss.
Indeed, I have been caught myself. At 8-10am on a Saturday morning on a road with virtually no traffic, parking for literally 20 seconds. Illegal yes. But I was a little aggrieved because the warden [parking not traffic] was hiding around a corner waiting to pop out if anyone transgressed.
Compare this with an occasion when I was about to park on a line to dash into a shop. The traffic warden didn’t wait until I did it and then ticket me, but just indicated that I shouldn’t. I didn’t.
Bridge street car park I can understand they are either in Court or in the DSS round the corner you can never get out of them when you're supposed to. Withy Grove is a Clearway during certain hours so you shouldn't be stopping to let passengers get in or out you've only yourself to blame if you decide the rules of the road do not apply to you. Hope they bring Box junction cameras in to that should help the budget deficit no end due to inconsiderate drivers clogging up junctions.
Don't park illegally- fine. But what erks me is them ticketing a car because a milimetre of it overhangs the parking bay- not even the wheels just the back park of the car- and often because some other idiot has parked badly in the next bay leaving little room. It's not dangerous or causing disrupton- got to be believe those are financially motivated.
I wish news reports would not be so biased. 'Blackspots' make it sound as if parking tickets are a bad thing. I would prefer if they had used 'goodspots' instead.Well done to all the wardens who worked extremely hard on our behalf to achieve these numbers!
I would like to urge the city council to put up the fees of parking fines to offset any cuts in other services. Cars cause untold health and environmental harm.
Goodie goodies make me sick. Years ago the company I worked for took over a social club from one that had gone out of business. On Friday nights they had a disco for youngsters. They finished up fighting in the middle of the main road. So they issued a rule only the children of members allowed. Guess what? The fighting continued.
Having got that straight let us look logically.
It is impossible to park in the city centre, so people do drive 1,000s of miles looking for the odd corner that has been overlooked. It has been made impossible mainly because councils have closed streets put yellow lines where they are not needed. You can have a perfectly straight street with no obstruction. There are parking bays,loading bays,disabled, and long areas with double yellow lines,quite arbitraliry.
I asked a warden when the regulations are changing to 7pm weekdays and no free parking on Sundays. He had no idea. So look out for them springing it on you and collecting another harvest.
It is not just me.I visited Altrincham market which looks a sorry relic of its former days. A trader told me it has been caused mainly by the councils attitude to parking. I think you will find the same sad story repeated everywhere. They do not care.
No chance of his hat falling down, not with them head wings.
And the top three "whitespots"? Howzabout a look at this week's chart of the llegal parking spots where you are least likely to get ticketed.....dearolor!
This week's biggest climber; up 79 places since the scaffolding was removed from the Piccadilly Approach frontage around Store Street, its Undercroft bus stop. Very popular with taxi drivers, and not only an inconvenience to bus users, but motorists wishing to turn left and also a distinct threat of blocking the tramlines.
At Number 3: Kingley Rd/Church Street bus stop, Northenden
Number 2: That old favourite; 82/83 etc bus terminus on Oldham Street, Piccadilly.
Whilst at Number 1 for the 612th week running, Yes, its Wong's Chippy bus stop, Ann Street/Manchester Road, Denton.
Jingle, jangle...howzaboutdat, then
Well done to all the Parking attendants who have worked so hard in producing tickets.
Please will the MEN be kind enough to print a list of the top 20 car crime hotspots in the City also, and number of car criminals arrested? (awaits wolf in sheeps clothings sycophantic response)
If you park illegally you deserve everything you get. But i have noticed its
mainly BMW driver's who do it.
I parked in Tameside on a road I had used for years.I came back to find a girl taking my number. I asked her why. She said in the past the police ran it, but they were more intelligent than the council.They did not bother. I asked why she was doing this unskilled job.She said the council had promised her a big future.
She did not book me it was only a trial run, but some months later 4 wardens in a car drove up and booked me. I was not causing an obstruction, I still see cars parked there. It is just a lottery.
I'm guessing most of the King Street tickets went to El Hadji Diouf ??
Last year I saw a warden ticketing a car parked off Deansgate on a Sunday afternoon on a street with no parking restrictions. There was however a hand written sign in a window saying 'No Parking' that obviously had no meaning in law, I pointed this out to the warden who just blanked me. I bet the poor motorist just coughed up the fine.