Council Owned Number Plates

An investigation by BBC East Inside Out has discovered that councils across the East of England own personalised car number plates worth up to £1m. The question is, as the UK examines how best to make savings, should they sell up?

Personalised number plates are often thought to be the preserve of the rich, but it has recently been discovered these valuable plates are owned by a number of authorities in the region.

This is a legacy of the days when local authorities were responsible for issuing car licence plates for vehicles in their area – the number plate F1 became the very first one in Essex in 1904.

But the most valuable is thought to belong to Northampton Borough Council. NH1 is worth an estimated £400,000, but Council leader Brian Markham said the authority did not want to sell.

He said: “If we got £400,000 – that’s equivalent to £4 off the average council tax bill for a whole year for the council taxpayers of Northampton.