Tower Hamlets destroyed more abandoned cars than any other London borough according to freedom of information (FoI) requests.

The council removed and destroyed 244 cars in the 12 months from April 2017.

That means of the 2,338 cars removed in the city that year, more than one in 10 of them were in Tower Hamlets.

But the number of abandoned cars reported to the borough is small in comparison to other areas of the capital.

Half London’s local authorities got more than a thousand abandoned car reports in 2017/18. Tower Hamlets got only 396 that year.

While outer London boroughs generally receive more reports, inner London boroughs have a higher rate of actually removing abandoned vehicles.

It’s unknown what the exact relationship is between how many reports are made and how many cars are removed.

Reasons for the difference between number of reports and the number of abandoned cars removed could be that there are reports multiple about the same car or the owner comes to remove it.

The fact that space is at a premium in inner London could also be a factor.

A Tower Hamlets spokesman said: “Abandoned cars are an issue across London and the figures show Tower Hamlets has a very successful record of removing cars swiftly.

“We know that abandoned cars can lead to an area experiencing other forms of anti-social behaviour so we attempt to remove cars when they are reported to us as quickly as we can.

“We would encourage people who see an abandoned car to report it to us via the Love Your Neighbourhood app and via our website.”

The FoI requests were made by price comparison website Confused.com.

“The cost of running a car is becoming incredibly expensive and it seems this has caused thousands of drivers in London to ditch their vehicles,” said Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com.

“It’s worrying that they think this is their only option.”

The website made an interactive map of its findings.

The data also showed that the number of cars removed by London boroughs has increased by 113 per cent in the last five years.

The North East of England has a far bigger problem. It saw an increase of 531 per cent from April 2013 to April 2018.