Cops seize thousands of cars

National Scrap Car asked police forces how many vehicles they had seized and was told that the figure was 214,051.

The vehicles were seized for a variety of reasons, including no road tax or car insurance, driving without a valid licence, or if the vehicle had been stolen or involved in a crime.

The statistics also include vehicles that had been stolen and then crashed by the offender.

Most vehicles - 59 per cent - were returned to their rightful owners despite the new charge of £192 which can be charged by cops.

A daily storage charge can also add £26 a day for a car that is held by the police.

Around 17 per cent of the seized vehicles were later destroyed and six per cent sold at auction.

The region with the largest number of vehicles seized by police was Dundee in Scotland and the lowest number was Warwickshire with 1,680.

Other low seizure locations were Suffolk (3,112), Wiltshire (3,333), Surrey (3,376), North Wales (3,493), and Durham (4,068). Only North Wales and Suffolk saw a drop on 2022.

Looking at the regions with the highest number of seized vehicles that are later destroyed, the top three were West Midlands (7,012), West Yorkshire (4,138), and Lancashire (2,394).

Further analysis of the data shows that the parts of the UK where there were the highest number of auctioned vehicles after police seizure was Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire (2,062), Dundee (1,982), and West Yorkshire (1,344).