More than £2.4million was generated in parking fines from just five Aberdeen streets over the past year, new figures have revealed.
The income for the city council is an increase of more than £1million from the previous year.
The most-ticketed street was Palmerston Road, on the north bank of the River Dee near the Union Square shopping centre.
Last night, a senior councillor admitted that new office developments in what is termed the North Dee Business District were given planning approval without an “adequate” number of parking spaces.
Labour’s Willie Young said the Scottish Government sets national standards for parking, with office employees encouraged to take the bus, cycle or walk to work.
Also in the top five for the number of tickets issued were Golden Square, Marischal Street and Stirling Street in the city centre, as well as Cornhill Road on the boundary of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The total revenue for parking tickets in the five streets was given as £2,489,344.21 for the past year. The total went up from £1,414,704.50 the previous year.
Finance convener Willie Young said funds collected from fines was ploughed back into road improvements and public transport strategies.
He added: “We would rather nobody received a parking ticket as this would mean that all drivers were complying to the rules on parking.
“However it is self evident from the fines that more and more people are flouting the law and paying the penalty.
“The Scottish Government set national parking standards which Aberdeen must comply with and this restricts our ability to allow office developments adequate parking for their developments.
“Palmerston Road, in particular, has new offices being built as well as being in close proximity to Union Square, all of which lends itself to people parking illegally for commercial or shopping gain.
Torry and Ferryhill ward councillor Alan Donnelly said it did not surprise him that Palmerston Road topped the list.
The Scottish Conservative said: “That whole area has been completely regenerated, you’ve got Union Square and you’ve got huge new office blocks going in there.
“Developers do not have to provide adequate parking because companies encourage their employees to cycle to work or catch the bus.
“It is a problem – the city is bursting at the seams and they don’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with the economic vibrancy of the city.
“Aberdeen has some serious challenges when it comes to parking.
“Until there is more education and more car parking facilities, this will continue.”
But fellow ward councillor Graham Dickson, SNP, argued that more car parks would only make the situation worse in the long run.
He said: “There is no real excuse for people working near Palmerston Road, which is right beside the bus and train stations, not to use public transport.
“Public transport is not ideal, it could be better, but certainly more people should be using it.
“I don’t think we can squeeze any more traffic into the city centre. The only way forward is to improve public transport.
“Just building more car parks is not enough – the more car parks you build, the more congestion will come.”
Neil Greig, director of policy and research at the Institute of Advanced Motorists said councils needed to get back to basics on the issue of parking fines.
He said: “The main reason for council’s taking over parking charges was that traffic would run more smoothly.
“But you never hear about that – you only hear about fines and money.
“In Aberdeen, unless it is a really busy weekend, there is not much advantage to taking the park-and-ride rather than the car.
“The only way to get people out of cars is to make it more attractive to catch the bus.
“You need to make it easy for people.”
Mr Young said the council was currently undergoing a review of parking charges with a report expected to be presented to the communities, housing and infrastructure committee soon.