Private parking companies issue a record 14.4m tickets to drivers in a single year

Requests to the DVLA from car park management companies for vehicle keeper details show the equivalent of almost 1.2m a month (1,197,653) or nearly 40,000 a day (39,375) were made. As each parking charge notice (PCN) is £100 this means drivers could be paying out up to £1.4bn, unless they successfully appeal or decide to pay up at the discounted rate.

The figure of 14.4m is more than double the number six years ago (6,808,344 in 2018-19), just before the Government passed an Act of Parliament intended to clamp down on rogue private parking operators. It is also 13% up on the 12.8m seen in 2023/2024.

Unfortunately, the Private Parking Code of Practice was withdrawn in 2022 following legal challenges from private parking and debt recovery companies.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.

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RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “Sadly, our prediction earlier this year that private parking companies were on course to issue around 14.5m tickets to drivers for alleged contraventions has come true. This is more than double the number issued six years ago before the Government passed an Act of Parliament intended to clamp down on the dubious practices of too many private parking operators.

“Unfortunately, the government-backed code is still not in force which means drivers don’t have the protection it was intended to provide. As it is, too many unfair tickets are still being handed out by operators who haven’t been forced to adhere to stricter rules and too many drivers are still being hounded by debt collection companies. And, we still don’t have a single, truly independent appeals service that drivers can go to if their initial appeal to the operator concerned is rejected.

“We don’t believe the parking industry’s argument that PCNs are only at record levels purely because they're managing more car parks.

“We urge the Government to ensure the official code is launched this year with all the protection it was intended to have so that we don’t see these figures go even higher in the future.”