Rip-off parking charges to end under new government rules
Drivers will have the right to challenge ‘unfair private parking charges’ under new rules announced by the government, and have five minutes to decide whether or not to park
It’s about to become a lot easier to escape paying ‘unfair parking charges’ from private car park operators thanks to new rights to challenge announced by the government today.
The wide-ranging Private Parking Code of Practice gives drivers a guaranteed five minutes after entering a car park to decide if they want to stay, and 10 minutes to exit when a parking session concludes. The code covers England, Scotland and Wales.
Charges are to be scrapped for ‘honest mistakes’, with examples including briefly pulling up to check directions, breakdowns, faulty ticket machines and medical emergencies. Fines must be cancelled when motorists “provide evidence that one of the scenarios set out in the Appeals Charter applies to them,” the government said.
£100 cap on parking fines
The maximum parking charge is to be capped at £100, with non-compliant operators risking losing their DVLA data access, which will make it tricky to find the registered owner to issue a fine in the first place. ‘Smaller slip-ups’, including entering the wrong registration number when paying or forgetting your parking permit, are to have a lower cap of just £20.
Private parking firms will be forced to report data on the fines they issue and their handling of appeals to an independent Scrutiny and Oversight board, with the hope of improving industry standards.
The new rules were preceded by a public consultation running from July to September 2025, from which there were 4,526 responses, with a general theme of drivers wanting fairer appeals and external oversight of the industry. The government will also launch a consultation next year regarding private parking debt recovery fees.
All of this follows various horror stories involving private parking firms. One motorist in Derby was sent nearly £2,000 in penalty charge notices from Excel Parking, having taken longer than five minutes to pay for a session, which she blamed on a poor mobile signal when trying to use a parking payment app. The charges were later dropped. More recently, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that it was investigating Euro Car Parks, following complaints from drivers that it was fining them for queuing for fuel.
“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,” Prime Minister Andy Burnham said, adding, “These charges leave people feeling ripped off and out of pocket, so I’m putting a stop to them.
“We are introducing clearer rules, longer grace periods and lower charges for genuine mistakes, while going after the deliberate scams that rip drivers off.”
Meanwhile, AA head of roads policy Jack Cousens said: "After seven long years, drivers finally have something which could offer them better protections against the worst private parking operators. For too long, many private parking operators have aggressively attacked drivers to the point where many simply pay up if they receive a charge from one on the doorstep.
"While this is a good first step, there is still a huge amount of work to do, such as tackling the scourge of debt recovery fees. Ultimately, we need to stop charges being issued in the first place, especially where the driver has done nothing wrong.”
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