Unpaid parking fines total £400,000 in Sandwell

More than 80,000 penalty notices have been handed out to motorists flouting the rules during the past three years.

But thousands of these have gone unpaid and £401,298 is currently outstanding.

Councillor Maria Crompton, cabinet member for highways, said the council will do its utmost to chase up the unpaid fines.

Figures revealed by a Freedom of Information request show the level of unpaid fines in 2015-16 is nearly four times that in 2013-14.

The outstanding penalty charge notices in 2013-14 were £117,722.71, which rose to £291,626.43 in 2014-15.

This figure sky-rocketed to the current level of £401,298.29 in 2015-16 to date.

Although the level of unpaid fines is at its highest this year the council has actually handed out the least number of fines.

In terms of the total number of fines, there were 32,053 handed out in 2013-14, 31,894 in 2014-15 and 25,403 in 2015-16.

Councillor Crompton said: "Obviously we will be trying to get back as much of that as we possibly can.

"There are some circumstances - such as foreign cars and things like that - where we can't always get the money back.

"But we always make as big an effort as we can to chase these fines up - people have done something wrong to be fined so they need to pay.

"We will be making a concerted effort to get this money back."

The overall number of fines paid is at its lowest in the three-year period, the figures show.

Council workers have collected just 62 per cent of on-street parking fines in 2015-16 and a meagre 52.3 per cent of off-street fines.

The uncollected pot of cash haul remains despite the council facing unprecedented cuts in its Government funding.

More than 200 jobs have been axed during the last 18 months at the authority which is currently trying to save up to £40 million.

It launched its Facing the Future programme last year to find £22m of savings and this has been extended to achieve cuts of £38m by 2018.

Residents were last month asked to have their say on multi-million-pound budget cuts facing the council in a consultation.

Deputy leader Steve Eling said this was 'an exercise so we can thoroughly review our medium-term financial strategy'.

"It is all the more important now with the levels of cuts that are being imposed by government. Our budget has already been reduced by £132 million since 2010 but there are more cuts to make.