MOTORISTS across Cumbria were given nearly 35,000 parking tickets for breaching on-street parking restrictions last year.

New figures show 34,903 penalty charge notices were handed down – a fall on the 37,324 given out the year before, according to a new report.

Cumbria County Council enforces on-street parking which netted £1.3 million although the service cost £1.4 million to run, new figures show.

Overall, parking services – which also involves administering thousands of parking permits – came in under budget by £138,000.

An annual report by Austin Shields, the county council’s parking manager, will go before a meeting of Barrow Local Committee on Friday (September 20).

Barrow’s figures show 3,642 tickets were issued – an increase on the 3,143 issued in 2017-18.

Across Cumbria, 1,430 parking tickets were cancelled after the motorist made a ‘representation’ after a ticket was issued.

Eight hundred were written off due to errors by the officer or the driver proving ‘untraceable’.

No vehicles were removed or ‘immobilised’ in the last year – the same as the year before.

And of 53 appeals taken to a parking tribunal, 31 of them were upheld.

The largest number of tickets – 13,955 -were given out to motorists parking in a disc zone without a valid disc.

A total of 278 tickets were given out for people parking in taxi ranks and 200 were caught parking in bus stops.

The council went on a recruitment drive last winter to recruit four more civil enforcement officers and additional back-office staff.

This followed increasing ‘community concerns’ about poor parking. The increase in staff saw costs rise by £147,000 on the previous year.

The county council employs 29 officers and eight administrative staff.

Ten officers cover Barrow and South Lakeland and 10 cover Allerdale and Copeland, with nine in Carlisle and Eden.

Back office staff have to process appeals and payments, issue 35,000 parking permits and deal with queries and complaints.

The county council said parking enforcement is carried out to improve road safety and traffic movement.

Enforcement of car parks – or off-street parking – is mostly carried out by the district councils in Barrow, South Lakeland, Eden, Copeland, Carlisle and Allerdale.

A private company, Equita Limited, won a three-year contract from the council to recover unpaid parking fines.