Private parking firms on track to issue nearly 14.5m tickets to drivers in a year

Private parking firms are on course to issue a record 14.5m tickets to drivers this year with just five companies responsible for almost half, RAC analysis of the latest government data shows.*

In the first half of the 2024/25 financial year, requests to the DVLA from car park management companies for vehicle keeper details hit 7.2m – the equivalent of 41,000 a day and a 12% increase on the same period 12 months before (6.5m).

If this trend continues when figures for the second half of the year are published, nearly 14.5m drivers will have been sent £100 parking charge notices for alleged parking contraventions, equating to £1.4bn. This would be more than double the number dished out six years ago (2018-19), just before the Government passed an Act of Parliament intended to clamp down on rogue private parking operators.

Unfortunately, the Private Parking Code of Practice was withdrawn in 2022 following legal challenges from private parking and debt recovery companies. This has meant the behaviour of private parking companies has not been scrutinised as intended by the Act, which may be part of the reason why so many more parking charge notices have been issued.

In March there was a widely reported story about the operator of Syston Town Square car park in Leicestershire issuing £100 parking charge notices to drivers for what they claim is a fault with the payment machine when entering their number plates. More than 130 people have joined a Facebook group because they were unhappy with their treatment by Euro Car Parks.

Prior to that Excel Parking threatened a driver with court action for £1,906 after she took longer than five minutes to pay for parking on several occasions in Derby. The case was subsequently dropped following media publicity and MP intervention.

Both of these cases came to light after the two private parking trade associations – the British Parking Association and the International Parking Community – published their own code of practice in October 2024 which the RAC believes once again demonstrates the need for the Government-backed code.

Further analysis of the DVLA data shows that just five companies are responsible for making nearly half (45%) of the 7.2m requests to the DVLA for vehicle keeper details in the first two quarters of the 2024-25 financial year. These are ParkingEye (1.1m), Euro Car Parks (891,600), Horizon Parking (439,896), Smart Parking (423,809) and APCOA Parking (367,465). ParkingEye was responsible for 16% of the total, and just 10 companies made nearly two-thirds (64% – 4.6m) of all the requests to the DVLA. Each request costs £2.50 to make.

To help drivers, the RAC has published a detailed guide on how to appeal both private parking charge notices and penalty charge notices issued by councils.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “It’s very concerning that private parking firms are growing and on track to issue a record 14.5m parking charge notices to drivers in the space of just 12 months. As drivers don’t generally set out to break the rules, we fear more may be being treated unfairly by private parking companies that are still operating without government scrutiny.

“Unfortunately, despite legislation being passed more than five years ago to prevent poor industry conduct, the Private Parking Code of Practice has never come into force due to a legal challenge.

“Eight-in-10 drivers we surveyed were frustrated by this,** but we know the Government is committed to getting the official code across the line.*** We believe this needs to happen as quickly as possible, particularly as the number of parking charge notices issued has more than doubled since the law was passed to introduce the code in 2019.

“If anyone feels they’ve been wrongly told to pay £100 by a car park management company, they should challenge it. With firms prone to sending debt collection letters after 28 days and then threatening court action, we realise the process can be pretty daunting, which is why we’ve published a step-by-step guide on what to do at each stage. We hope this will help drivers get unjustified parking charge notices cancelled.”

Ends

Notes to Editors

* RAC analysis of DVLA Keeper At Date Of Event (KADOE) data

** RAC Opinion Panel online survey conducted with 1,847 drivers from 20-28 August 2024

*** Minister for local growth, Alex Norris MP, stated on 28 February in answer to a Parliamentary question raised by Martin Wrigley MP: “The Government is committed to delivering a single Code of Practice for private parking companies to follow”