Manchester's worst streets for parking fines have been revealed, with figures showing the council collected more than £50m from over 1.6m fines issued in the last three years. Data from a freedom of information request shows that in 2025/26 alone, nearly £20m was raised from more than 580,000 parking fines.
St Johns Street tops the list
According to the figures, the worst street in Manchester for parking fines in 2025 was St Johns Street in the city centre, where 6,795 fines were handed out worth a total of £355,170. Oxney Road in Rusholme was a close second with 6,620 fines, making £307,185.
Grandale Street, also in Rusholme, rounded off the top three streets for parking fines, with 5,457 tickets issued in 2025 worth £265,985.
Yearly breakdown of fines
The figures were broken down as follows: in 2023/24, 506,343 parking fines were issued with £16,051,993.61 collected; in 2024/25, 602,546 fines were issued with £18,880,601.83 collected; and in 2025/26, 584,654 fines were issued with £19,998,064.24 collected.
Hundreds of fines were also successfully appealed in 2025 according to the council data, with 226 cases on Byrom Street, 212 on King Street, and 169 on St Johns Street.
Council response and parking costs
Council car parks in central zones of the city cost £7 for a maximum stay of two hours, or £4 for one hour. Some residents and visitors said in May that they felt parking in Manchester city centre is 'hideously expensive' and can be off-putting.
Wendy Cook, 51, from Stretford, has a free parking place in the city centre through work, but said the cost of parking in Manchester generally is 'definitely too much.' She said at the time: “I don't think there's enough public transport options yet to get people out of their cars.”
Addressing the number of parking fines, a Manchester council spokesperson said: “While the council cannot provide a comprehensive overview of why more tickets are issued in certain areas compared to others, we can see that both St John's Street and Oxney Road are both in two busy locations where a greater proportion of people are likely to park.
“St John's Street is in the city centre and requires motorists to pay and display and Oxney Road and Grandale Street both fall within the Rusholme and Moss Side Resident Parking Scheme.
“All money collected via fixed penalty notices is retained within the highways department and is used to maintain Manchester's entire road network. Each penny collected is put back into the roads that all of us use.”
