Parking Code of Practice Consultation 2025 - now let's see what happens

Protest

"MHCLG and Govt need some blocking strategy that avoids any potential capitulation."

Govt must require MHCLG to prepare to dominate all opposition to the will of Parliament wrt the 2019 legislation and the related CoP. Which depends on a Minister with her eye on the ball and the skill and grit to score against a well-organised ATA opposition. 

ATAs win by delay: "Hi Minister....are you sure....?"  - and DoT regard BPA as "parking industry experts".....

"Government teams with parking giants to ensure drivers can use preferred apps in all car parks

British Parking Association will develop and run the 'national parking platform', providing drivers with a more flexible parking experience."

grassmarket

Which? As usual it’s too little, too late. 

It’s all very well sending their own response, but Which? have done absolutely nothing to tell anyone else about it! This is a public Consultation - not an exclusive invite for self-appointed ‘consumer champions’ like them. Up to now (2 days to go) they’ve given zero publicity to the Consultation - magazine or online. Which? admits (as quoted above) that they regularly hear from consumers about the unfair treatment & distress caused to them by Operators. Yet they have done nothing to help all those people who contacted them, to make their own views & experiences known. 

The accompanying article from Which? is equally useless. It just tells you how to ‘appeal’ to the Operator & their ‘independent adjudicator’. They give no advice about how to deal with debt collector & quasi-legal threats, let alone LBCs. 

All they say is “If you go to court and lose, you’ll have to pay the fine and possibly court costs.”
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/parking-fines-which-calls-for-tougher-rules-to-protect-motorists-aQajg9R1y8Kr

Nellymoser

Now the consultation is closed we await MHCLG report on the received responses.

A big thank you has to go to Coupon-mad for all the work and time she dedicated to this consultation not only on the forum but govt CoP steering group too. And to all the regulars and new posters for posting their views.

The HCLG Minister says this Govt 'inherited a dysfunctional private parking industry' going by this consultation I feel we may have inherited a dysfunctional Ministerial Dept with selective hearing.

Nellymoser

https://www.registry-trust.org.uk/blog/parking-fines-and-ccjs-our-response-to-the-governments-consultation/

"At present, Registry Trust does not receive claimant details from the county courts, so we cannot quantify precisely how many judgments stem from parking fines."

"Our latest analysis highlights a striking pattern: a clustering of unsatisfied consumer judgments at relatively low values.

• Over 40,000 unsatisfied judgments are recorded at £277.

• A further 31,768 judgments at £285, and 31,025 at £284.

• The top 20 judgment values all fall between £185 and £298.

This strongly suggests that a large share of judgments relate to standardised penalty charges, such as parking fines. Civil parking penalties often begin between £60 and £130 but, if unpaid, escalate through fees and interest and may ultimately become CCJs."

"The Government has committed to legislating for claimant data to be included, and we anticipate this will be in place by the first half of 2026."

"In the meantime, the available evidence points clearly to parking fines making up a significant and growing share of judgments on the Register."

Coupon-mad

I'll also post this in the News/Media thread but it's worth a mention here too, as this info comes directly from the Public Consultation and Options Assessment:

Parking ticket debt recovery firms make ‘disproportionately high’ profits

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-10-05/parking-ticket-debt-recovery-firms-make-disproportionately-high-profits

Companies charging drivers fees for recovering parking ticket debts have an average profit margin exceeding 60%, a Government document has revealed.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the figure indicates there is a “market failure”, while the AA branded it “disproportionately high”.

Good to see that fact reaching a wider audience.

Wonder if @Kaizen2024 will comment - does ANYONE honestly think it is in any way excusable to rinse the public at this transparently abusive level?!

Articles like this add weight to the argument to ban the added 'fee' outright. Maybe the CMA and FCA will wake up and weigh in, at last.

Kaizen2024

Am pretty sure I have said before that I don’t accept that DR companies run at 60% profit globally as a business.

That figure MAY (I don’t know) be correct for an individual collection average i.e revenue / number of paid tickets, but anyone with business knowledge knows that’s not how profit is correctly measured (you cannot ignore costs associated with cases that have not been collected / business operating costs).

On that basis, this is misinformation and is unhelpful for all concerned.

Coupon-mad

Well we will see. Any misinformation will be due to DRAs not being open with the MHCLG. If they were open and honest, the MHCLG would know more and realise what a rip off this is.

Either way, the model is abusive. Come on, let's be real. All a DRA does is:

- receive bulk data (automatically transferred via Unity5's 'ZatPark' or similar software). Negligible or no cost and no human involvement;

- no interaction with the client about individual cases. They are essentially assigning 'debt' (without a Deed of Assignment but that's basically the MO);

- then they do a load of bulk soft traces that Simon Renshaw Smith confirmed cost tuppence ha'penny (see the 2023 Draft IA);

- they send out a series of cheap automated letters, via Unity5 who use a mail consolidator where postage is around £1.66;

- they use PTP software which is also peanuts per case, once set up.

- they offer 'Payment Plans' (again very cheap once set up);

- Some twelve year olds on minimum wage answer the phone and scare people into paying exaggerated money that they don't owe (IMHO, rather like a scam call centre).

That's it.

Questions:

1. Tell me how that costs the DRA anywhere near £70 in a single PCN case?

2. Tell me how that costs £700 in a ten PCN case (not ten letters, just the usual chain)?

3. Tell me why the PPC (who sits twiddling their thumbs throughout, off on a jolly on their yacht or sitting coiffing champers on a beach on holiday) deserves to get more than face PCN value returned to them?

4. Tell me why parking cases are 'different' from EVERY other sector, where honest traders issue reminders themselves and treat DRAs as a last resort. If they have no choice they send it to a DRA or what used to be called a Debt Factor and - quite rightly - expect to receive a % of debt (due to commission deducted) ... and the better DRAs and legal firms achieve a  60-90% paid success rate, without court or CCJ cluebats?

RogerW_3

Nellymoser said:

Now the consultation is closed we await MHCLG report on the received responses.

A big thank you has to go to Coupon-mad for all the work and time she dedicated to this consultation not only on the forum but govt CoP steering group too. And to all the regulars and new posters for posting their views.

The HCLG Minister says this Govt 'inherited a dysfunctional private parking industry' going by this consultation I feel we may have inherited a dysfunctional Ministerial Dept with selective hearing.

This government (when previously in power) created the dysfunctional private industry by failing to enact a private parking code at the same time as POFA 2012, which would have stopped self regulation by car park operator's and stopped the issue of millions of meritless parking charges that are caused by operator contributory negligence, etc. 

patient_dream

RogerW_3 said:

Nellymoser said:

Now the consultation is closed we await MHCLG report on the received responses.

A big thank you has to go to Coupon-mad for all the work and time she dedicated to this consultation not only on the forum but govt CoP steering group too. And to all the regulars and new posters for posting their views.

The HCLG Minister says this Govt 'inherited a dysfunctional private parking industry' going by this consultation I feel we may have inherited a dysfunctional Ministerial Dept with selective hearing.

This government (when previously in power) created the dysfunctional private industry by failing to enact a private parking code at the same time as POFA 2012, which would have stopped self regulation by car park operator's and stopped the issue of millions of meritless parking charges that are caused by operator contributory negligence, etc. 

Totally agree with you.  I do not think the current government has grasped the situation of letting a mega scam industry run riot, including the two not fit for purposes ATA's