More than 300 parking charge notices (PCNs) have been handed out at car parks owned by a district council.
Following an Freedom of Information Act request by this newspaper, we can reveal that 314 PCNs were issued to drivers parking at Breckland Council's car parks between January 1, 2023, and November 20.
The figure is down from last year, where 409 PCNs were issued during 2022.
Across the course of 2023, £7,419 was paid out by drivers for offences, which included parking in a car park without clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket or voucher or parking clock, parking beyond the bay markings, and parking in an electric vehicles' charging place during restricted hours without charging.
(Click top right icon for full breakdown)
Breckland Council owns 27 car parks across Attleborough, Dereham, Swaffham, Thetford, and Watton. It also says that car parking in Breckland is free at all of its owned car parks.
On its website, the council highlights that Market Place Car Park, Pedlars Car Park, and Town Pit Car Park, all in Swaffham, have a two-hour time restriction, while Queens Square Car Park has a three-hour time restriction in Attleborough.
These are the only four car parks which have fines in the entire district.
65 tickets received no payment due to several reasons, including a valid ticket being provided, machine problems and discretion being cited on the FOI request.
Most of the fines cite £50 as the original penalty, but 15 say they were originally £70. The majority of the fines were paid off for £25, as Breckland say if the PCN is paid within 14 days of the contravention occurring then the charge is reduced by 50pc.
On 28 occasions, people paid the full penalty of £50, while there was only one case of someone paying off the full £70.
However, in some cases, people paid above the figure request, with the highest amount received being £84 for a PCN originally quoted at £50, for an incident at the Queens Square Car Park in Attleborough. We requested more information from Breckland about the incident.
Five other incidents saw drivers pay £75 when the original notice was for £50, and one another paying £60.
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