New study reveals Sheffield is one of the most expensive UK cities to park in

Sheffield comes in as the ninth most expensive place to park with London in first place at £3,744 per year.

The new study reveals that Britons spend Up to £3.7K annually to park in the biggest cities in the UK.

Liverpool comes in at the cheapest of the 10 biggest cities in the UK for parking, costing £2,184 per year (or £42 per week).

More than 9 in 10 Britons feel parking charges are too high.

Britons feel that paying £15 a week for parking is acceptable, far less than the £42 to £72 a week they’re currently paying in the various cities and towns in the UK, on average. It was also uncovered that 83% of parking charge costs go towards parking for work.

The team at www.MoneySavingHeroes.co.uk conducted the research as part of an ongoing study into the costs of driving within the UK. 2,491 Britons aged 18 and over, all of whom stated that they drove every day and used their car to drive to work or to a nearby car park, were quizzed about the costs involved.

Firstly, all respondents were asked “What do you think of the cost of parking around the UK?” to which almost all respondents (92%) felt the charges were ‘far too high’. Just 8% of respondents felt the costs were acceptable.

When asked what they felt the Government and local councils should do about parking charges, respondents cited ‘dramatically reduce the cost’ (38%) and ‘allow commuters to pay for a discounted permit’ (30%) as top answers. Just 15% felt parking charges should be abolished, with parking to be made free.

Furthermore, all respondents were asked to state which city or town they lived the closest to, or parked in the most, in order to determine parking cost averages around the UK, as well as being asked to estimate how much they paid for parking each week. Once the city averages were found, these were multiplied by 52 to cover the whole year.

George Charles, spokesperson for www.MoneySavingHeroes.co.uk, said: “Whilst having a space to park at your place of work is nice, this unfortunately isn’t always possible, especially in and around the larger cities of the UK – hence why so many Britons need to pay to park. The results of this study really open your eyes to how much Britons are paying on parking – no doubt a sizeable chunk of their salaries – and we agree that something needs to be done.”

The most expensive cities to park and commute in were found to be:

Greater London - £3,744 (average annual spend on parking)

Oxford - £3,120

Birmingham - £2,808

Leeds - £2,600

Manchester - £2,589

Newcastle - £2,496

Bradford - £2,392

Wolverhampton - £2,340

Sheffield - £2,324

Liverpool - £2,184