The Queenstown Lakes District Council has raked in close to $4 million in nine months from parking charges, fines and regulatory fees — $1 million more than expected.
An audit, finance and risk committee report shows the council expected to collect about $2.16 million by the end of March, three-quarters of the way through the financial year.
That was to have included about $1.1 million from traffic and parking infringements; $1.058 million from pay and display carparking; and $455,000 from those in breach of the freedom camping regulations.
Instead, it collected $3.972 million across the district — more than had been expected for the full financial year.
It followed a crackdown on parking in the CBD, including an increase in parking fees in the CBD, which came into effect on December 5.
Council communications adviser Rebecca Pitts said the higher-than-expected revenue was a result of growth, and more parking wardens — at present there are nine employed full-time across the district.
Between July 1, 2017 and June 13 this year a total of 44,074 infringements were issued — 3148 of those were $60 tickets for "inconsiderate parking", which adds up to $188,000.
Queenstown comedian Mike Legge received a ticket for inconsiderate parking after the Luma Southern Light Project earlier this month, after he parked in a car park.
"I don’t know how inconsiderate that is," Mr Legge said.
Inconsiderate parking did not include any of the other 51 offence categories listed by the council.
Under the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004 legislation "inconsiderate" encompassed drivers or people in charge of vehicles who stopped, stood or parked the vehicle on a road, whether attended or unattended, "without due care or without reasonable consideration for other users".
The greatest number of infringements, 11,197, were issued to drivers who failed to display a pay-and-display ticket, while 4428 were issued for parking on broken yellow lines.
In the last financial year more than 4500 people appealed parking tickets and just over a quarter were written off following an accepted explanation — 136 of those were "inconsiderate" parkers.
