Almost �10million was collected by Islington Council from parking tickets and penalty notices last year.

The figures, which come from a Freedom of Information request by the Gazette, show the council issued more than 210,000 penalty charge notices (PCNs) in 2011.

Of the tickets, which include parking offences as well as illegal right hand turns, 135,420 were eventually paid.

The revenue generated – �9,939,707 – is more than half the entire amount slashed from this year’s budget and is �700,000 more than last year’s total.

Roger Lawson, the London representative of the association of British drivers, said: “That is a huge amount of money, far more than other boroughs and Islington is relatively small.

“They obviously have a very aggressive policy of charging drivers as much as they can for anything they can think of. It’s just a way of generating revenue. They are not interested in reducing infringements.”

Neighbouring Haringey collected �8million in PCN revenue, while Camden collected �17million for the tax year 2010 to 2011.

Cllr Richard Greening, Islington Council’s executive member for finance, said: “We are issuing 15 per cent fewer tickets than three years ago. In addition, more people are paying promptly, which means our in-year collections have improved.”