The lucrative nature of parking has been illustrated by the results enjoyed by hospitals in Derby over the course of the last year.

According to the latest figures, Unity Recruitment learnt that almost £1 million in profit was made by the Royal Derby and London Road Community hospitals between April 2012 and March 2013, underlining just how much money there is to be made by those who provide a successful service.

In total, around £3.3 million was taken by the hospitals before costs were taken into consideration, reports the Derby Telegraph.

Paul Brooks, head of facilities management at Derby's hospitals, promised the £963,000 profit will now be reinvested in patient care.

Overall, the two hospitals in question provide more than 3,000 car park spaces to patients and visitors. The money taken from these is essential in allowing the hospital trust to be able to maintain its buildings and meet upkeep responsibilities.

Mr Brooks played down the idea of free parking, explaining: "It's difficult not to get a surplus from parking fees because you can't get to a point in the year where you say, 'We've now got enough to cover costs, so we'll make parking free for the rest of the year'."

He went on to note that free parking would be extremely hard to police and the hospitals do not want to become effectively free park-and-ride sites for the city. As such, they must be protected and used for the intended purposes only.

As well as the revenue achieved as a result of parking fees, the hospital trust also made £4,425 through dishing out fines to people who broke the rules.

In order to implement regulations, it is important for hospitals to employ people in parking jobs with the responsibility to punish those who flout guidelines.

"Again, it's important to protect our car parking sites and this is one way of doing this - although 80 per cent of the parking tickets we place don't end up in fines," Mr Brooks explained.