Over 9,000 parking tickets handed out in Northampton town centre this year ahead of planned charges hike

A freedom of information request by the Chronicle & Echo has revealed which of Northampton's town centre streets were hit hardest by traffic wardens in 2019.

The worst affected was Abington Street, where drivers were slapped with 3,833 yellow tickets between November 2018 and November 2019.

It comes after pay-and-display machines were set up in the high street for the first time earlier this year, which likely contributed to why so many cars were penalised.

In the unlikely case every ticket on Abington Street was paid within 14 days, the county council could have made up £172,000 off of that one street alone.

Meanwhile, traffic wardens handed out 1,683 tickets on St Giles Street in the same period, and 1,785 on Derngate.

And, outside Northampton General Hospital on Cliftonville, 1,264 drivers were handed penalty charge notices on those 12 months.

All told, more than 10,000 yellow tickets were handed out across Cliftonville, Abington Street, St Giles Street, Mercers Row, George Row and Derngate.

It comes after a controversial consultation by the county council in September this year proposed to raise the parking charges for on-street pay-and-display machines from £1.20 to £2.

The county council says the move is to encourage drivers to consider using the town's underused parking bays.

Businesses and councillors widely criticised the plans and said that further parking charge increases would be 'another nail in Northampton’s coffin'.A consultation for the plan ended in October this year. The results are yet to be published.