More than £270,000 has been raked in from car parking by Wycombe District Council since April, it has been revealed.

The revelation comes after the district council was forced to ditch the controversial automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) parking system in February because a Bucks Free Press investigation revealed the system could be letting ticket dodgers get away scot-free.

At the time WDC said it has been “left with no alternative” to change the system following the government’s decision to restrict data held by the DVLA.

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Between the beginning of the financial year and September, a total of £272,000 was clawed back by the district council, with finance chief David Watson saying they are having less “leakage” than before.

At a cabinet meeting on Monday night, where the figures were revealed, he said: “We are collecting more money having gone back from where we were in terms of technology we were using. We have preserved our parking income and improved it year on year.”

Of the £272,000, £40,000 of that has come from enforcement, £75,000 from season tickets and £136,000 from daily parking.

Council leader, Katrina Wood, repeated her support for the ANPR system and said the council’s intention was never to rake in money from residents.

She said: “I’ve gone on record to say before actually we don’t want to make money out of our residents for car parking, which is why we had the ANPR system.

“It is a far better system - but obviously we weren’t able to use that and we have had to go back to pay and display. It has been an unintended consequence of it but that wasn’t the intention in going back.”

Meanwhile, nearly quarter of a million pounds was spent by the council on agency staff amid a number of vacancies.

A total of £220,000 of overspend went on paying agency and interim staff as well as work on housing benefits, elections and homelessness prevention, since April.

Karen Satterford, WDC chief executive, explained that the costs are expected to decrease now more staff have been hired.

She said: “There have been a number of reasons for the variance. We have had a couple of high level interims – corporate director and head of finance.

“It takes a long time to recruit at senior levels so we had to get people in in the interim.

“I’m pleased to say they have both now been filled and we have new people starting so those costs will come out of the picture.”