Hackney Council spent more than £10,000 on parking penalties and charges in a single year, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.
Data on council payments below £250 obtained by Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) shows employees incurred a total of £10,253 on parking charges, enforcement, and road penalty fines between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.
Around half of this expenditure (£5,640) was for 47 penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued by Transport for London (TfL) after staff flouted driving or parking rules. The local authority also incurred an additional £4,613 on other parking penalties, including from its own car parks.
Beyond TfL, Waltham Forest Council received the largest sum in penalties from Hackney totalling £3,100. Smaller payments were made to private operators, including £233 to UK Parking Control, £206 to ParkingEye, and £160 to National Parking Enforcement.
On top of this, the council spent roughly £490 on routine parking payments and £850 in fees to TfL, such as for ULEZ and congestion charges.
The figures have prompted criticism from the free market pressure group TaxPayers’ Alliance, which called on the council to hand the “wasted” money back to residents.
Benjamin Elks, grassroots development manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Council bosses have wasted more than £10,000 on avoidable parking and road penalties. They are quick to fine residents, yet expect taxpayers to cover their own mistakes.”
“Those responsible should repay the money, and procedures must be tightened immediately,” he said.
The LDRS contacted the council several times but at the time of publication it had not provided any comment.
In the 2024/25 financial year, Hackney Council collected £11.3 million in revenue from PCNs and parking enforcement.