Drivers now less likely to get parking fines thanks to long-awaited rule change

Drivers now have longer to pay for their parking after anger over companies charging people who couldn’t find the signal to download their app.

Until the start of this month, private car parks offered motorists five minutes to pay before they were at risk of being penalised.

But the rule was reviewed after body-builder and makeup artist Rosey Hudson was fined £1,906 by a private firm in Derby for regularly taking longer to buy her ticket.

She refused to pay the fine, saying there was no ticket machine at the car park and poor signal meant she had to walk further away to buy her ticket via an app on her phone.

Ms Hudson was summoned to court, but eventually the fine was withdrawn.

The issue was raised in the House of Lords earlier this month, with Lib Dem Baroness Pidgeon asking if a new parking consultation would look into the five-minute rule.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, the under-secretary of state for local government, said Ms Hudson’s case showed ‘some of the worst practice that we have seen’.

She continued: ‘I see, as probably we all do, people wrestling to download apps when there is no wifi, so that they can pay their parking charges. Both private parking trade associations have recognised this as an issue.

‘They have worked collaboratively to take immediate steps to ensure that motorists no longer receive parking charges in that kind of scenario. This came into effect at the start of February.’

The British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC) said a new panel will revise their private parking code of conduct – which was introduced last year – to ensure it ‘protects genuine motorists who have difficulty making prompt payment on entry’.

They also said the panel will ‘fast-track updates to the code to reflect technological advancements’.

The panel will then conduct a full review of the code of conduct.

It comes after private parking businesses have been accused of using misleading and confusing signs, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fines.

And in November it emerged that an average of 41,000 parking tickets are being issued a day by firms.

Some 3.8 million tickets were handed out between July and September 2024, according to analysis of Government data by the PA news agency and motoring research charity the RAC Foundation.

Each ticket can be up to £100, meaning the total cost to drivers may be near £4.1 million per day.

A Bill to enable the introduction of a Government-backed code of practice for private parking companies received royal assent under the Conservative government in March 2019.

This code included halving the cap on tickets for most parking offences to £50, creating a fairer appeals system, and banning the use of aggressive language on tickets.

It was withdrawn in June 2022 after a legal challenge by parking companies.

Now, the government is preparing to launch a consultation later this year that would lead to a new code of practice less vulnerable to court challenges.

The BPA and IPC published published their own code of practice in June.

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