Parking (Code of Practice) Bill 2017-19

Wednesday 30 January 2019

With millions of people using public car parks and the number of fines issued by private parking companies at an all-time high of an estimated 6.4 million in 2018 alone the changes outlined in the bill will be welcomed by the car owning public.

Government backing

The government is backing a code of practice that will mean motorists have a single place to appeal private parking charges. The bill sets out to give motorists the opportunity to challenge unfair charges and will mean the appeals process is overseen by an independent team of adjudicators.

The Code of practice bill sets out that there will be a fine limit of £100 and a grace period of ten minutes before drivers can be fined.

The introduction of this new legislation will hopefully provide a consistent and fair approach to parking fines issued for parking on private land.

DVLA

The bill also states that parking firms not obeying the rules will be blocked from using the DVLA database, this will therefore prevent them being able to issue fines as this is the database containing details of every car and the registered address and owner.

There have been many stories in the press about unfair fines issued and include those ranging from broken meters to the driver accidentally entering the wrong number or letter of their car registration number.

As part of the discussions around the bill there has been a suggestion that the DVLA investigate when a large volume of requests come through for an area to check the fines are legitimate and the fines are fair.

Parking penalties

The bill will not impact or affect parking penalties issued by local government and this includes congestion, red route, low emission and dart charge penalties. The bill has an aim of regulating private parking companies and will hopefully be passed and have a positive impact for drivers.