The latest figures show there were 3595 parking fines issued in the last financial year – well up on our nearby similar-sized cities.

It has been the same for several years.

Orange City Council spokesman Nick Redmond said it was probably due to a combination of factors.

That includes Orange having more people who drive into town for work.

“The latest census findings reveal Orange has a significantly larger number of people [5927] who drive into the city from other places to work each day, compared to 3869 into Bathurst and 3751 into Dubbo,” he said.

“This puts added pressure on the available parking spaces.

“When you combine this with the number of day visitors who come to Orange for tourism and other services [6641] this adds up to Orange dealing with an extra 1300 cars which are parked in Orange compared to Bathurst [5215] and Dubbo [5297] every day.

The Central Western Daily has found that both Orange and Bathurst councils have patrol cars that travel around their cities with number plate recognition systems to check over-staying cars.

And Orange has three parking inspectors, Bathurst has 2.5 positions and Dubbo has two.

Orange also has the paid Ophir car park, Bathurst has a limited paid car park area while Dubbo does not have paid parking.

Mr Redmond said Bathurst started its car system earlier than Orange which has led to people parking further away from the CBD.

“Bathurst council introduced the new system in March 2014 and a report to Bathurst council in April this year has found evidence of a significant change toward the number of drivers who now park outside the main shopping areas.

“That may be a trend that will be noticed in Orange in future years.

“Another factor could be that Orange still has a central main shopping precinct where both Dubbo and Bathurst have a number of shopping areas.

“While there are benefits of a single CBD, that does concentrate the pressure on parking,” he said.

But there is some good news for Orange motorists.

The number of fines is down on previous years.

There were 3595 in 2016-17, 4361 in 2015-16 and 5399 in 2014-15.