More parking tickets are issued on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the heart of London’s theatre district, than on any other road in the UK, according to a freedom of information request.

Theatregoers and shoppers who illegally parked their cars on Shaftesbury Avenue in Westminster picked up 5,708 parking charge notices (PCNs) between July and September 2017, at a total cost of nearly £400,000.

Such is the scale of illegal parking in the area that more fines were issued on Shaftesbury Avenue during the period than in the whole of the city of Oxford, where 3,314 were issued.

The data, obtained by price comparison site comparethemarket.com, reveals the worst spots for parking fines around the country.

Unsurprisingly, London authorities issue far more parking fines than anywhere else in the UK, with a total of 549,009 charge notices in the three months, generating revenue of £24m.

Edinburgh is the next biggest issuer of fines, and imposes many more charge notices per head than London. There were 58,994 PCNs issued in Edinburgh between July and September, with George Street in the city’s New Town area the most heavily ticketed.

Scotland’s eagle-eyed parking wardens garnered two out of the three top spots for parking fines in the UK, with Glasgow following Edinburgh with 33,693 fines issued.

Glasgow’s St Vincent Street, close to the pedestrianised Buchanan Street shopping area, was the city’s parking fine blackspot.

Comparethemarket also tested how soon parking wardens were likely to issue a fine to a vehicle with an expired ticket. It parked a car on a side street near the department store Harrods in west London, and within 12 minutes of the ticket time expiring, it was given a PCN. When researchers left a car on a street in Liverpool city centre, it took four hours after the ticket expired before the vehicle was given a penalty notice.

The standard parking fine in central London is £140, reduced to £70 if the vehicle owner pays within 14 days.

The number of tickets issued by Westminster city council has fallen dramatically since a peak in 2003-04. In that year, 1,051,798 PCNs were issued by Westminster alone. The figure dropped to 322,454 in 2016-17.

Westminster said it still issued the most PCNs of any London borough, but it attributed the numbers to the density of traffic and iconic locations that attracted visitors from all over the world.

Top 10 cities for fines (July-Sept 2017) and their parking blackspot

1 London 549,009 – Shaftesbury Avenue, Westminster.

2 Edinburgh 58,994 – George Street.

3 Glasgow 33,693 – St Vincent Street.

4 Birmingham 32,991 – Alum Rock Road.

5 Leeds 23,734 – South Parade, Central.

6 Wolverhampton 22,961 – Victoria Square bus lane.

7 Newcastle upon Tyne 19,815 – Dean Street multistorey car park.

8 Liverpool 18,948 – Prescot Street.

9 Bradford 14,362 – Piccadilly.

10 Sheffield 13,360 – Ecclesall Road.