A north London council raked in more than £11 million from parking tickets – a 25% annual increase – after doubling the number of wardens it employs to patrol the streets.

Enfield Council announced it made £8.1 million in profit — termed “surplus revenue” — from its parking services in the 2025/26 financial year. This total represented an increase of £1.7 million over the previous year.

On-street enforcement – the largest source of income for the council’s parking services by some distance – was a key driver behind the financial upturn.

The borough, incorporating areas such as Bounds Green, Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill, also took in an additional £2.75 million in profit from its street enforcement operation last year – an increase of about a quarter compared to 2024/25.

Total income from penalties issued to drivers for rogue behaviour rose to £11.5 million, up from £9.3 million the year before.

But the income was offset by spending £8.3 million on enforcement. It gave the council a total profit from on-street parking fines of more than £3 million in 2025/26.

The surplus generated by parking services teams is restricted by law. It can only be used to fund approved transport and highway-related initiatives, including funding concessionary travel, such as London’s Freedom Pass, which is aimed at older and disabled residents.

The findings were included in a recent report by Enfield Council assessing the impacts of changes to its parking and enforcement practices.

The income boom is a result of almost doubling its team of parking wardens – known as civil enforcement officers – across the borough, which stretches from Edmonton in the south to Bullsmoor in the north.

Enfield Council said 2025/26 saw a “significant review and enhancement” of its civil enforcement team that had led to “increased visibility”.

Civil enforcement officers are tasked with applying the council’s parking restrictions.

The local authority’s report found that an average of between 14 to 16 officers would previously have been deployed between Monday to Saturday.

The council said the service “now regularly deploys up to 30” of these staff daily. It said the hiring spree had “substantially strengthened its ability to monitor parking restrictions”.

Councils have a statutory obligation to deliver parking services, including traffic regulation across the borough, as well as parking enforcement on sites it maintains.

The report, published last week, said effective parking management “encourages the turnover of parking spaces, supporting local businesses by improving customer access to town centres and commercial areas”.

It comes as Enfield’s Conservative minority administration, having ousted Labour as the largest party at the May local elections, agreed to push ahead with plans to offer 30 minutes of free parking per vehicle per day.

The measure would apply to all council-owned car parks as well as “eligible on-street parking locations”.

The local authority is in the process of carrying out a statutory consultation on the proposals.

Council leader Alessandro Georgiou has previously said that, if the public backs the idea, the policy could “go live” by the end of November.