When a driver in Leicestershire was threatened with court action because she owed close to £2,000 in charges after taking too long to pay for stays in a Derby car park, the horror story went viral.
Rosey Hudson, whose sales job involved a stint in the nearby shopping centre, was unable to pay within the “maximum period of five minutes” flagged on the car park’s signs because the only payment machines she could see were broken and a poor phone signal prevented her from getting online. Instead, each time she used the car park, she paid the full £3.30 daily rate when she got to work, taking no more than half an hour to do so.
But soon £100 parking charge notices (PCNs) from the operator Excel Parking started arriving, 10 in total covering days during a two-month period in 2023. She paid the first, but became increasingly angry about the injustice and sought to challenge the other charges.
“I appealed through Excel but all of them got rejected,” says Hudson, who decided to withhold payment on principle. “I was a bit hesitant to do this because after about six months I started to receive debt recovery letters, and one said that if you don’t pay, you could face a county court judgment.
“But something in me said ‘this isn’t right’ because they [Excel] haven’t financially lost anything. I paid the daily rate. So my heart was telling me to stick to my guns.”
Her action, first reported by the BBC, meant that by the end of last year the sum she owed had snowballed to more than £1,900 – a £70 debt recovery fee had been added to each ticket. Interest of 8% a year, a £115 court fee and £80 legal costs were added to the total.
Although Excel – which disputes Hudson’s version of events and says it allows for a “period of tolerance” before issuing a PCN – has dropped the claim, the case has reignited the row about how private parking firms treat drivers.
The number of PCNs issued by these companies has risen sharply to almost 41,000 a day in 2024, according to analysis by the RAC Foundation. That compares with about 24,000 a day five years ago.
A recent survey by the RAC found that more than half (55%) of motorists felt the enforcement policies of private parking firms were too heavy-handed, with 40% saying there was no justification whatsoever for the way the rules were enforced. Almost eight in 10 (78%) believed private parking companies were “only interested in making money from drivers”.
£50 cap
With record numbers of PCNs being issued, there is growing frustration that there is still no official private parking code of practice despite legislation being passed five years ago to bring one in.
In February 2022, the then Tory government promised a code that included a £50 cap for most parking offences, a ban on “rip-off” debt collection fees and a fairer appeals system. However, the code lasted less than six months after legal challenges by several parking firms forced it to be withdrawn.
There is hope it will be resurrected by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is “determined to drive up standards in the industry”, says a spokesperson. “We know how much of an issue this is for drivers, which is why we will set out further details on the private parking code of practice as soon as possible.”
Into this vacuum the sector’s two main trade bodies, the British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC), launched a self-penned code last year. However, neither the RAC noe fellow motoring organisation the AA think it is a good enough substitute for the official one.
Simon Williams, the head of external affairs at the RAC, argues that only a government-backed code will bring much-needed fairness to the sector.
“We badly need an acceptable cap on parking charge notices, along with a cap on debt recovery fees as, in our opinion, both are disproportionate to most parking contraventions,” he says. “A truly independent single appeals system is needed for those who feel their initial appeal to the firm concerned has not been listened to.”
The BPA and IPC say the code they have devised “will raise standards and deliver greater transparency and consistency for the benefit of motorists”. Firms play a crucial role in managing parking spaces, they add, and “over 99.77% of parking events are compliant and free from dispute”.
‘Tried everything to pay’
And yet something needs to change. Guardian Money is regularly contacted by motorists who feel wronged by a system they believe is stacked against them.
These include semi-retired planning expert Mike Preston, who “tried everything to pay” yet ended up with a £60 charge for a stay in a car park near Wolverhampton train station. “I feel like they’ve basically stolen some money from me,” he says of a year-long attempt to get a refund from the parking firm Saba.
He says the pay machine was out of service and he couldn’t complete the payment on the app advertised on the car park signs. When he got home he emailed asking for assistance but did not get a reply.
“Days later, a fine arrived,” says Preston. “My appeal was dismissed out of hand. I know £60 is not a major amount of money but this is about the way I have been treated and possibly others too.” The appeal was rejected because there were working meters in the station and supposedly a help number he could have called.
For Andy Garner, visiting a friend at Colchester hospital resulted in a £70 PCN. After taking 20 minutes to find a space in the car park run by the operator Parkingeye, he paid for an hour-long stay via the Evology app used by the company.
He received a ticket because although the app showed an “exit time” calculated from when the ticket was bought, the full duration of the stay was based on the entry time collected by the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system. “This inaccuracy leaves countless visitors vulnerable to fines, often when they’re already dealing with the stress of a hospital visit,” says Garner.
Parkingeye says the parking period begins when a vehicle enters the car park with drivers given an additional 10-minute grace period to leave after their slot ends.
“ANPR technology is designed to ensure that enforcement only occurs when the rules of the car park have been broken, such as the correct tariff hasn’t been paid or the motorist has overstayed,” it says.
“The motorist correctly received a parking charge due to staying for one hour and 24 minutes and only paying for one hour. The charge was also upheld by Popla, the independent appeals service.”
With parking disputes once again making headlines, the BPA and IPC recently announced the creation of a “scrutiny and advice panel” to oversee their code and that one of the panel’s first tasks will be to review Hudson’s case. (Excel says it will adhere to any changes made to the code.)
Andrew Pester, the BPA’s chief executive, describes the panel as an “important step”. “We want to demonstrate that not only are we serious about raising standards but also making decisive changes to the code when issues arise,” he says.
Hudson is happy: “I feel like I have been listened to and things are changing.”
