Andy Burnham has announced a new set of rules to protect drivers from unfair parking charges – including 10 minutes to leave a car park after a parking session ends and five minutes to decide whether to park on arrival.
The Government’s new Private Parking Code of Practice, laid before Parliament on Tuesday, sets out when drivers can and cannot be charged in car parks run by private companies, such as those at supermarkets, retail parks and gyms.
The rules follow years of complaints from drivers about unfair private parking charges, and the number of tickets issued has soared.
Private parking firms issued a record 16.9 million tickets in the year to the end of March – more than double the 6.8 million issued in 2018-19, according to analysis of Government data by the Press Association and the RAC Foundation.
What will change for drivers?
Drivers will be guaranteed five minutes after entering a car park to read the signs and decide whether to stay. A driver who pulls in, sees the prices and leaves within five minutes cannot be charged.
They will also have 10 minutes to drive away once their paid parking time runs out. A driver whose ticket expires at 3 pm, for example, cannot be charged for leaving at 3.08 pm.
Charges will be cancelled in full for honest mistakes, such as stopping briefly to check directions, and for problems outside a driver’s control, such as a medical emergency, a breakdown or a broken ticket machine.
For smaller slip-ups – forgetting to display a permit, typing in the wrong registration or forgetting to confirm it at the machine – the charge will be cut to a maximum of £20.
Setting out the changes, Burnham said: “Being a few minutes late back to your car or typing one digit of your numberplate wrong shouldn’t end with a hefty fine landing on your doormat.”
None of this happens automatically. A driver who receives a ticket they think is unfair will need to appeal and show evidence that one of the situations covered by the new rules applies to them.
Appeals go first to the parking company that issued the ticket. If the company rejects it, drivers can take their case to a new independent appeals service, where decision-makers will have no ties to the parking industry.
How will the new rules be enforced?
Many of these rules already exist. Since October 2024, most parking firms have followed a set of rules written by the industry’s two trade bodies, the British Parking Association and the International Parking Community, which firms must stick to as members.
Those rules already include a 10-minute grace period, a £100 cap on charges, clearer signs and rules on when appeals should succeed.
However, those rules are enforced by the trade bodies themselves. The Government has had no direct say over how they are set or what happens to a firm that breaks them.
That will change when the Government’s new parking code comes into force on 21 December.
Any firms found not to be following the rules will lose their access to the DVLA database, which holds the name and address of the registered owner of every vehicle.
Private parking firms rely on those records. When a camera or attendant logs a number plate, the firm requests the owner’s details from the DVLA so it can post them a ticket.
Without access to that data, the parking companies will not be able to send people fines.
What the new rules don’t change
This new code is not the Government’s first attempt. A law passed in 2019 required ministers to draw up official rules for private car parks, and the then-Conservative government published a first version in 2022.
That code would have cut the maximum charge from £100 to £50 and banned debt collection fees. But parking firms challenged it in the courts, and ministers withdrew it later that year.
The new code keeps the £100 limit.
Debt collection fees are also untouched. Drivers who do not pay on time can face an extra charge of up to £70, and the Government has promised to consult next year on whether to cut the limit or scrap the fees altogether.
The AA criticised the industry’s 2024 rules for failing to cap charges or remove debt recovery fees.
Responding to the new code, Jack Cousens, its head of roads policy, said it was “a good first step”, but added there was “still a huge amount of work to do, such as tackling the scourge of debt recovery fees”.
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