MORE than £160,000 worth of unpaid parking fines are currently burdening district councils across Somerset.

Figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request by the County Gazette reveal that, collectively, the public owes £166,040 in unpaid parking fines from car parks across Taunton Deane Borough Council (TDBC), Sedgemoor District Council (SDC), South Somerset District Council (SSDC) and West Somerset Council (WSC) areas.

Over the past four years, since NSL undertook the onus for council car parks in Taunton and West Somerset, TDBC has accumulated 1,387 outstanding fines and WSC has 183.

Basing costs on a £70 for a parking fine, or £50 if paid in a certain amount of time, it could be said that the public owes £97,090 to TDBC and £12,810 to WSC.

A spokesman for WSC and TDBC said: “While we are disappointed that a very small number of motorists do not follow the rules, the vast majority do. “We work with our partners to ensure that there are robust policies in place to tackle those who transgress.

“Of these, a small number are not pursued for a variety of reasons and our decisions are always taken with a view as to what is best for the public purse.”

The councils state that those fines that are not pursued have been considered not to be in the “public interest”.

It also says that in comparison, those not paying their fines are outnumbered massively by those paying fines, or using the service without getting fines.

The highest amount of unpaid fines were those issued in the Crescent car park and Cannon Street car park in Taunton, Swain Street car park in Watchet, and Summerland Road car park in Minehead.

In Sedgemoor, 523 unpaid parking fines were outstanding as of September 13 2016. This equates to £36,610 owed to the council. The highest number of unpaid fines were found in Pier Street car park in Burnham-on-Sea and Dampiet Street car park in Bridgwater.

A spokesman from SDC said: “There are around 1m visits to Sedgemoor DC’s car parks each year and around 2,500 penalty charges are issued, which means 99.75 per cent of customers pay the correct fee and park considerately.

“Sedgemoor DC tries to reduce the need to issue penalty charge notices by providing clear and accurate information at the ticket machines.”

From April, 18.31 per cent of parking fines in South Somerset have been left unpaid, which could be worked out as 279 fines and £19,530.

A spokesman from SSDC said: “Pay and display car parks are clearly displayed across the district so that those who are intending on using them know that they have to pay.

“We have no control over whether users purchase a ticket or not or even if they stay within the time they have bought, but we enforce the car parks and follow the relevant regulations and will use an enforcement agency if needed to recover what we are able to in unpaid fines.”