Overview
- The government laid the Private Parking Code of Practice in Parliament on Tuesday, formally setting guaranteed five minutes to decide whether to park and ten minutes to leave without facing a charge.
- The code requires operators to cancel charges on appeal for honest mistakes or events beyond a driver’s control and caps small‑error appeal charges at £20.
- Operators who fail to follow the code risk losing access to DVLA vehicle‑keeper data, a sanction designed to stop firms from using keeper records to pursue widespread charges.
- Ministers froze the existing £100 maximum parking charge and pledged a 2027 consultation on debt‑recovery fees, leaving immediate bans on those fees out of the package.
- The move responds to a sharp rise in private notices—about 16.9 million in the year to March 2026—and introduces an independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board plus new reporting rules for operators.