Manly Council brace for more than half a million dollars in unpaid parking fines

Manly Council has forecast it will be more than half a million dollars out of pocket in unpaid parking fines by the end of the financial year.

Woman cops unfair parking fine because of glitch in ticket station. Leslie Sargaent parked her car on N Steyne and put her rego in the ticket box. She was fined 5 minutes later - even the council said they'd had teething problems with the machine but they wouldn't reverse the fine, she went to SDRO and they refused her appeal as well.

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Manly Council has forecast it will be more than half a million dollars out of pocket in unpaid parking fines by the end of the financial year.

Figures released in the council’s quarterly budget review at Monday’s meeting revealed a $600,000 dent in the council’s budgeted income.

When the figure was questioned at the council meeting, deputy general manager Stephen Clements said this was not an unusual figure for councils and they rely on the State Debt Recovery office to chase up the unpaid fines.

A Manly Council spokesman said the amount was significant but the council was not alone in the situation.

Manly Councillor Candy Bingham, who raised the question about the large figure, said it seems a lot of money to be writing off.

“What concerns me is that there’s been an allowance for this amount of money in the budget that looks as though we won’t be collecting,” Cr Bingham said.

Manly Resident Lesley Sergeant is currently fighting a parking ticket that was incorrectly issued to her after a glitch in the parking meter.

She also suggested the changing parking systems caused confusion.

“There’s been a lot of changes to the parking meter and parking system,” she said.

“The first one was the no permits on the windscreen and people had to punch in their numberplate and that caused a lot of confusion and frustration and now we’ve got paperless tickets.

“There has been a lot of examples recently of locals being unfairly fined because of these changes in the system.”

As of December 31 last year, Warringah Council has written off approximately $533,367.69 in unpaid parking fines left for the State Debt Recovery Office to follow up.

According to Pittwater Council general manager Mark Ferguson, the council has an outstanding figure of $391,421. This is as of ­December 31 of last year and is inclusive of all fines levied historically.

It wasn’t all bad news for Manly, with the council recording an income increase of $300,000 from parking fees.

A spokesman said this ­figure related to increased revenue from meter and paid parking.

It also received an income increase of $43,500 from development applications and $27,300 from special events.