NEW figures show that the council has collected more than £700,000 in parking fines since a controversial rules regime was introduced.

The decriminalised enforcement scheme, where parking attendants replaced police traffic wardens to enforce restrictions, came into force in Inverclyde in October 2014.

Figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws show that fines totalling £724,016 have been paid since.

More than 22,000 penalty charge notices had been served.

Any fines issued are treated as civil debts and the income received through the scheme is retained by the council towards running costs or, if the account is in surplus, spent on other transport-related projects.

Council bosses forked out £116,690 to a car parking partnership for the administration of charges, leaving £607,326 in the coffers.

More than 3,000 drivers who refused to pay penalties had their debts passed to the sheriff court.

The parking rules generally operate between 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and traffic regulation orders cover inner and outer Greenock, Port Glasgow, Gourock, Inverkip, Wemyss Bay and off-street car parks.

Parking within inner Greenock is free for two hours. Off-street parking is divided into medium stays of up to three hours, plus free and long stays.

A disc must be displayed on vehicle dashboards to qualify for time-limited free parking,

Other figures released by the local authority show that between July and September last year a total of 1,966 notices were issued.

Over £53,000 was collected from drivers.

West Blackhall Street, pictured, in Greenock town centre is where most tickets are handed out by wardens.

A council spokesman said: “The sole purpose of introducing parking regulation was to bring an end to three years of chaos in town centres caused by the police withdrawal of wardens.

“The idea is to increase the turnover of short term parking spaces to encourage more people to visit local shops and businesses and to provide more unrestricted parking spaces to ease demand on long-stay parking affecting residents.

“The revenue from penalty notices is used to cover a wide range of parking related costs including staff, administration, rates, infrastructure and recovering unpaid charges. Any surplus can only be used for transport-related projects.

“This year we are expecting charges to effectively cover our costs.”