Map reveals most expensive places to park – is your area on the list?
THE most expensive places to get a residents' parking permit have been revealed - did your area make the list?
Parking permits enable locals to park outside their homes overnight and at weekends without being slapped with a parking ticket.
But the problem for many motorists is that there are no hard and fast rules about how much a council can charge, with fees varying wildly from authority to authority.
As fees can vary depending on the council, there is no fixed sum of how much non-parking permit holders can be stung with.
Many councils also demand more cash depending on the sort of vehicle you drive – with the most polluting cars and vans falling foul of emissions-based parking charges.
And with parking permits proving a lucrative money-spinner for many councils, a new Freedom of Information (FOI) request from leading vehicle leasing specialists has uncovered just how much some councils are demanding per year.
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The affluent north London borough of Islington came out top, setting permit holders back £860 per year – to park on the street outside your own home.
The most expensive parking permit available from Manchester City Council weighs in at £750 per year - for a so-called 'C2' pass in the city centre – which puts Manchester in runner-up place.
Scotland’s capital Edinburgh is third most expensive in the UK, with the most eye-watering residents’ parking permit there costing £580 annually.
That’s almost six times as expensive as the UK average permit price, priced at £107.
Meanwhile South Hams District Council – an area in south west Devon that covers idyllic locations such as Salcombe and Totnes – is the fourth most expensive place in the UK to live and park, with annual permits costing a maximum of £576.
The remaining councils shamed in the Top 10 most expensive areas list are Stroud, Gloucestershire (£550), Bournemouth (£485), Stirling (£471), Enfield, London (£395), Haringey, London (£379), and Hackney, London (£376).