BRIGHTON and Hove has become the Parking ticket capital of provincial England.

Parking attendants have handed out more fines in the city than anywhere else in the country outside London, according to the latest figures.

Some 161,194 tickets were issued in 2003, raising more than £3 million.

Brighton and Hove City Council makes a profit from parking fines but says it uses the surplus to subsidise traffic calming and parking schemes.

The Argus reported last year how a league table of tickets issued by 69 councils between April 2002 and April 2003, published by National Parking Adjudication, listed Birmingham first and Brighton second.

That situation has now reversed with Birmingham - population one million - languishing in second on 147,994 tickets.

The figures, released by the RAC motoring organisation, put Manchester in third place with 114,466.

Brighton and Hove had 70,000 more tickets than Nottingham, despite having 20,000 less people.

Steve Percy from the Brighton-based People's Parking Protest said he was not surprised.

He said: "Visitors find it difficult to park here and regulations are still in force on Sundays.

"There is a lot of confusion because each town and city has its own laws so people are not sure what can or can't be done.

"I believe the law is being enforced too harshly. A person might overrun their time by only a minute or two and a ticket is slapped on them.

"It would be nice if there was a little more leniency and people were allowed at least five minutes.

"A person might be stuck in a supermarket queue and £30 is a lot of money to lose because of something like that.

"Obviously is somebody is deliberately and regularly flouting the law then they should be punished for it.

But a bit of leeway would be good, otherwise visitors are going to be put off coming here."

The RAC said 7.1 million penalty charge notices for illegal parking were issued in 2003 which is equivalent to one every five seconds or more than 19,000 a day.

RAC spokesman Philip Hale warned drivers to be extra carefulduring today's bank holiday.

He said: "Parking tickets already raise almost £1 billion a year.

"With these figures it is all too easy for motorists to see themselves as a soft target.

"We need to see an end to incentives for wardens to make sure parking enforcement is focused on safety and congestion and not revenue."

The council recouped £2,643,783 from fines in 2001/02, though this covered only the period from July 2001 when the authority took over responsibility for parking.

Brighton and Hove city councillor for transport, Craig Turton, said the tickets were not a revenue-raising exercise.

He said: "We aim to provide parking arrangements which are fair because we have a limited number of parking spaces in our Regency and Victorian era streets.

"Our streets were not designed for this number of vehicles and we need to try and make the best of the spaces we have available.

"If people believe they have been ticketed unfairly, they can appeal.

"The appeal rates we have here are extremely low compared with other cities who issue around the same numbers of tickets.

"We are trying to be fair to all drivers. Any revenue from the tickets is ring-fenced and is used for road improvement schemes."