A QUARTER of all parking fines issued last year have still not been paid. Nearly 50,000 penalty charge notices remain outstanding – amounting to a total debt of over £5million. The figure came to light after Lib Dems asked environment chief Cllr Brian Hal

A QUARTER of all parking fines issued last year have still not been paid.

Nearly 50,000 penalty charge notices remain outstanding - amounting to a total debt of over £5million.

The figure came to light after Lib Dems asked environment chief Cllr Brian Haley to explain why the council has not collected the cash.

Cllr Martin Newton said: "It's outrageous that Labour Haringey Council fails to collect the money due on nearly a quarter of all penalty charge notices for traffic offences and parking.

"This amounts to around £5million uncollected just last year and if we take the previous year into account the total figure could be around the £10million mark.

"If the council is to be believed and this money would have been used to fund Streetscene projects, this would have provided funds to tackle urgently the abysmal state of many of the borough's roads and footways."

As well as the 47,785 outstanding fines from the last financial year, the council is also chasing up tickets from 2003.

Cllr Brian Haley said: "Our recovery of parking fines has actually improved significantly since we introduced clamping and removal in the borough two years ago. This deterrent has helped us increase our recovery of on-street fines by 13 per cent to 61 per cent.

"The problems we experience with persistent evaders of parking fines are common to every local authority. It is for this reason that London Councils is developing a London-wide database of offenders which will enable any borough to seek payment of these charges no matter where they were issued. Transport for London (TfL) has also piloted a cross-borough exercise specifically dealing with clamping and removing persistent offenders.