MORE than 3,000 extra parking tickets were handed out to people in Oldham over the space of a year – but thousands have still not been paid, figures have revealed.

Data from a Freedom of Information Act request found that 40,212 penalty charge notices (PCN) were issued from August 2020 to July – 3,225 more than the previous year (36,987).

Within the statistics, the amount of PCNs given out to people for parking in designated disabled parking spaces increased from 1,193 in 2019/20 to 1,433 in 2020/21, a rise of 240.

Out of the 40,212 PCNs issued in the latest figures, 13,252 have not been paid, figures have discovered.

The roads in the borough where the most PCNs have been dished out from August 2020 to July 2021 have also been published.

The most PCNs were handed out on Oldham Road in Failsworth (4,225) while Ashton Road sits in second place with 3,280.

St Mary's Way (2,074) is closely followed by Dove Stone car park (2,023) and Tommyfield car park is in fifth spot with 1,362.

In 2019/20, St Mary's Way was top with 4,614 with Oldham Road in Failsworth following in second (3,363), just above Ashton Road (3,331).

Earlier this year, it was reported that Oldham Council made £158,000 in profit from parking services in 2019-20, according to research by motoring research group, the RAC Foundation.

But that was down 16 per cent from £187,000 the previous year – though in 2015-16, the council were £89,000 in deficit.

Across England, councils made a combined profit of £891 million from parking activities in 2019-20 – down five per cent from £934m a year earlier.

They received an income of £1.7bn from their parking operations and spent £854m running them, the figures show, although interest payments or depreciation of assets such as car parks are not included.

The surplus for the latest year was up from £750m in 2015-16.

The analysis is based on data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It reveals the vast majority of the 338 councils who returned figures reported a surplus on their parking operations.

In response to the latest figures, Cllr Amanda Chadderton, cabinet member for neighbourhoods at the council, said: “Throughout the last 12 months we have continued to monitor and enforce parking across Oldham, including the issuing of penalty charge notices where people have parked irresponsibly.

“We would like to remind all drivers to park appropriately and legally, including not abusing disabled bays.

“There are a number of reasons why some PCNs go unpaid, however we do our very best, in line with the statutory timescales, to ensure payment is collected on time with some unpaid cases being passed on to enforcement agencies.”