Councils in England are on track to make a ‘profit’ of almost £900m from their parking operations in the current financial year.

Councils are predicting nearly £900m profit on parking in 2018/19

Predictions from 354 local authorities indicate that the surplus will be up 13% on the £786m forecast for the 2017/18 financial year, which is waiting for final figures.

The surplus could be even higher according to analysis for the RAC Foundation by transport consultant David Leibling. For 2016/17, the actual surplus figure for parking operations was £819m, up 9.6% on the £747m that the councils had predicted.

For 2018/9, the council predicting the biggest profit is Westminster in London, which expects to make £78.7m.

All but two of the 10 councils predicting the largest surpluses are in the capital; the exception being Brighton and Hove at number 7 (£21m) and Birmingham at number 10 (£12.3m).

The RAC Foundation noted that the figures provided by councils do not take into account any capital charges – either for capital expenditure on new car parks or interest and depreciation on existing car parks – nor any allocation of corporate overheads.