Almost all of the local councils in Kent boosted their profits from parking charges and fines between 2011 and 2012.

Figures today from the RAC Foundation show Canterbury city council generated the most cash - just over £2.5 million - up from £2.1 million the year before.

Only Thanet and Shepway saw a drop in the amount of money from on and off-street parking.

In fact, in Thanet, the amount it gathered in for parking more than halved - from £431,000 in 2010/11 to just over £200,000 in the most recent figures.

Nationally, Westminster reaped in the greatest amount in fines and parking charges - taking a whopping £41m in revenue.

The huge sums made from local authority parking are revealed just days after a judge declared Barnet Council had acted illegally in trying to set charges to raise revenue, rather than as part of traffic management.

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: "For many local authorities, parking charges are a nice little earner.

"Not all authorities make big sums....

"But the bottom line is that hundreds of millions of pounds are being contributed annually to council coffers through parking charges and the drivers who are paying them have a reasonable expectation to see the cash spent on improving the roads."