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Car racks up nearly £5,000 in parking tickets

Parking tickets cost £90 but are halved if the driver pays within 14 days. Picture by Mal McCann
Parking tickets cost £90 but are halved if the driver pays within 14 days. Picture by Mal McCann Parking tickets cost £90 but are halved if the driver pays within 14 days. Picture by Mal McCann

A CAR in Northern Ireland has racked up nearly £5,000 in parking tickets in just two years.

The vehicle has received a staggering 51 parking tickets, the largest number for a single vehicle in the north.

Another car has amassed more than £3,200 worth of parking tickets that still remain unpaid.

The figures for the 20 vehicles with the most parking tickets were disclosed to The Irish News in a Freedom of Information request.

In Northern Ireland parking tickets, or Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), carry a £90 fine but are halved if the driver pays within 14 days.

The statistics cover PCNs issued on public roads and car parks within the Department for Infrastructure's remit for the years 2014 and 2015.

The most parking tickets issued to a single vehicle was 51 penalties, which would cost a driver up to £4,590.

All of these parking penalties have been paid, but the figures also reveal another car on the books has £3,240 worth of PCNs that remain outstanding.

Earlier this year it emerged that in Britain the vehicle with the worst parking record had 653 parking tickets.

It is the equivalent of more than £55,000 in parking fines. The vehicle was based in Gateshead near Newcastle.

The statistics do not relate to the drivers but to the vehicles themselves, which could have changed ownership several times.

Nearly 77,000 parking tickets were issued across Northern Ireland during 2015.

The figure only covers on-street parking penalties as responsibility for off-street car parks transferred to the north's councils last year.

In April it emerged that drivers in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, have not received a single ticket from parking attendants for six years in a row.

The lack of penalties has caused controversy over the years due to vehicles in other similarly sized and smaller towns receiving PCNs.

Roads chiefs have previously blamed politicians for opposing parking restrictions, while the DUP's Maurice Morrow branded Coalisland as a town where "traffic wardens are forbidden to enter".

But some Coalisland traders insist there is no need for parking attendants in the town.

In February it emerged that parking attendants across the north have recorded more than 100 threats against them in the past year.