Parking offenders in Tauranga city have been stung $1.4million in the last year through fines issued by wardens.

According to figures, Tauranga City Council has issued a total of $1,414,542 in parking fines in the last financial year ending June 30, 2013.

Parking fines issued in the last financial year total $1.4million.

This is up more than $70,000 on the previous year ending 30 June 2012, where council collected $1,343,305 in parking fines, but down from the $1,422,871 collected for the financial year ending June 30, 2011.

City parking wardens issued 18,549 infringement notices in the city centre in the 2012/13 financial year; 2925 in the downtown area at the Mount and 1041 in Greerton Village. A further 7691 were issued across the rest of the city.

City council transportation manager Martin Parkes says the revenue from fines is used to cover the cost of running the parking scheme. Any surplus is used to pay off the debt on the parking buildings.

When asked if the increase means the city centre is experiencing an increase in shoppers and is on the re-bound, Martin says the small amount of difference makes it too difficult to tell.

'These things tend to end up and down over time,” says Martin.

'It's really difficult to give a comment on it because it's such a low change.

'That figure when we look over a period of time is fairly stable. If we saw a $300,000 difference then we might look a little bit more closely for a reason why. But for us that's a pretty stable number going forward.”