A countryside carpark in Congleton is one of the worst places to park your car in Cheshire East for fines.

A seemingly innocuous strip next to Davenport Lane's Brereton Heath Local Nature Reserve topped the charts for penalty charge notices (PCN) in 2021.

Drivers parking on the road near the popular Brereton Heath Local Nature Reserve picked up 655 PCNs, totalling £24,319 in fines.

This is according to Cheshire East Council, who own the rural carpark and many in our town.

A freedom of information request showed the street which proved to be the biggest cash cow in terms of parking fines for Cheshire East during the 2020/21 financial year, was Brereton Heath Lane.

And cash cow is quite an ironic term to be used, given the parking spaces' proximity to dairy farm The Little Cow Shed and Dale Farm!

In total, Cheshire East Council raked in more than £1.5m in parking fines in 2021 – and one driver received a whopping 58 tickets totalling £3,320.

Figures released following freedom of information requests reveal 25,358 fines were issued in the borough during that 12-month period.

That amounted to a whopping £1,517,460.

Fifty eight of those penalty charge notices were issued to one car, mostly while it was in the Whalley Hayes carpark in Macclesfield.

The council refused to disclose details about the vehicle, saying: "This information, combined with the area [which carpark], would give too much information to identify and approach the driver."

The council did disclose that 21 of the tickets were issued at the £70 higher rate and 37 at the £50 lower rate.

It also revealed that, as of March 14 this year, none have yet been paid.

And when it comes to parking fines across the borough as a whole so far in 2022, latest available figures show that, in the first three months of this year, 6,591 penalty charge notices have been issued across Cheshire East, boosting the council's coffers by an additional £394,670.