Parking Code of Practice Consultation - remember remember the 5 September - it closes next week!

Protest

The high cap (£100) is justified as containing an incentive - a penalty charge independent of costs incurred by the operator. This is intended to act on errant motorists to encourage better behaviour. Unfortunately it works even more potently on some operators, incentivising breach-of-contract entrappment and hence much of the stupidity that we see as contested PCN invoices.

This moral hazard hidden within the cap needs exposure and remedial action - ie a cap that removes any idea of penalty or incentive. It is the operators' responsibility to supervise their facilities, they cannot run ropey systems and charge motorists (even the "bad" ones) for revenue leakage. 

Nellymoser

Don't know how others feel but I expected to see the Govt completely ban the use of these error producing, not fit for purpose parking payment machines and systems.

Looks like this Govt wants to retain the opportunity for the parking operators to be able to issue pcns for machine, technology or human errors while giving only those motorists who can produce 'not my fault' evidence see their pcn cancelled at appeal.

IMO the Govt have selected the wrong solution to address this problem. Their choices will do nothing to simplify the parking experience for motorists. I'm left asking is this Ministerial Dept incompetent or negligent.

patient_dream

"is this Ministerial Dept incompetent or negligent."

YES TO BOTH

Coupon-mad

Posted this on another thread at the weekend after @LoneStarState reminded us all about the bombshell clout of the CMA and the DMCC Act but it's more relevant here:

Coupon-mad said:

Wonder how the DMCC Act affects the current/recent conduct of:

- operators
- DRAs
- the shonky Appeals Services
- the APAs and their shonky 'Joint Code'.

There's a heck of a lot of REALLY interesting silver bullets in the DMCC Act which is clear, even if you skim-read the Technical Note first you get a flavour of it:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unfair-commercial-practices-cma207

I don't even think the MHCLG's current proposals and presumptions comply...

We need to trawl though this Act for the Public Consultation and/or we can (LOTS OF US) insist the Government consults the CMA - and the FCA and the ICO - thoroughly.

And everyone (newbies included of course) if you can - and even if you have no spare time, knowledge or inclination to do the Consultation yourself - please please tweet the Public Consultation to the CMA, FCA and ICO and/or tag them in a 'shout out' encouraging responses on whatever Social Media we all use.

We could also tag organisations like the Private Hire / Taxi trade publications, courier organisations, Citizens Advice, StepChange, Money Advice Trust, et al and suggest they join the consumer voice to ban 'debt recovery fees' in this sector completely.

Like with appeals, the parking industry should wholly fund any third party involvement, out of the millions they are rinsing in PCNs.

That way (if the DRAs are paid by the industry a going rate regardless of consumer outcome) DRAs won't be in incentivised to ignore matters that arise that make them no money (transfers of liability, permits, blue badges, realisation of keying errors and cases needing reissued PCNs).

All of those outcomes fairly favour consumers but DRAs make no money if they recognise those cases. They currently completely ignore the Appeals Charter section of the Joint Code, saying 'it's too late, pay up and pay more or we'll sue.'

This is why consumers should NOT be the side asked to fund pre-action stage. It is unbalanced: if a DRA does the right thing by a consumer they MAKE NO MONEY.

Thus we can evidence and identify a lack of adequate management of the conflict of interest between giving solutions in the customer’s best interests and recommending an option that makes the firms more money.

If that sounds familiar, it was the exact rationale the FCA used when banning debt packagers from receiving referral fees:

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/financial-watchdog-proposes-ban-debt-packager-referral-fees-protect-consumers#

The FCA needs a social media shout...

  

Le_Kirk

Nellymoser said:

Don't know how others feel but I expected to see the Govt completely ban the use of these error producing, not fit for purpose parking payment machines and systems.

Looks like this Govt wants to retain the opportunity for the parking operators to be able to issue pcns for machine, technology or human errors while giving only those motorists who can produce 'not my fault' evidence see their pcn cancelled at appeal.

I've gone to town on this in my (still not complete) consultation response.  It's taking forever, I've saved and returned three times now and still there are more questions, some I cannot answer as I don't have the info and some are repeat, asked in a different way type questions!  I've used a lot of "I refer my learned friend to my previous answer".

Le_Kirk

Le_Kirk said:

I put NO to both questions, saved my consultation intending to return.  In the meantime I have done some research and found a document from JustBeagle that seemed to show what we wanted and a link to Ministry of Justice stats but when I looked closer both were from 2017.  Not sure  that's what the consultation wanted!  Does the consultation aim to find out if the respondents know about the figures OR are they actually after the figures; if it is the latter, surely they can look then up as we can, indeed far easier than we can!

After further research, I changed my response but still did point out that it is not my job to provide figures or statistics and did eventually find some MOJ stats and gave a link to them, although they did not split out results when debt recovery was involved and whether or not it changed the outcome.
I have now finalised and submitted my replies having "stopped and saved for later" FIVE times.  I did find it annoying that when one used the email to continue the consultation it did not take one back to where one had left off, having to scroll to the bottom and hit the continue button multitudinous times.  There seemed to be some duplication of questions (maybe trying to trip us up into giving different answers to the same question!) and some of the questions were designed to be answered by specific sectors, i.e. not by me but my a car park operator.  It was certainly a marathon but forumites should not be put off answering, just save and come back later.  I only hope it is a proper consultation and not the usual "we've given you the chance to air your view but now we are going to do what we want anyway!"

defender001

This thread has become very long. Can someone summarise, perhaps in a pinned top-post, what the forumites are supposed to do in respect to the consultation?

Coupon-mad

defender001 said:

This thread has become very long. Can someone summarise, perhaps in a pinned top-post, what the forumites are supposed to do in respect to the consultation?

We will this week - too busy just yet!

ParkingMad

Apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere.

It’s interesting that the companies issuing the most PCNs aren’t the ones with the most Court claims. 

https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2025/06032025.html

 

• Private parking companies are requesting vehicle ownership data, which assists them in issuing parking tickets every two seconds
• Private parking companies made a record 7.8 million requests to the DVLA for vehicle keeper records in the first six months of 2024/25 financial year 
• 2024/25 is on track to beat the record 12.7 million requests made in 2023/24 financial year 
• Requests have surged 85 per cent in five years while the number of companies requesting data rose by 45 per cent in the same period

Table 2: Top 10 parking management companies requesting vehicle ownership data in 2023/24: 

	Parking Management Company	Number of Requests
1	ParkingEye Ltd	2,232,254
2	Euro Car Parks Limited	1,638,886
3	Horizon Parking Limited	770,774
4	APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd	733,257
5	Smart Parking Ltd	664,140
6	Civil Enforcement Ltd	591,153
7	UK Parking Control Limited     (UKPC)	573,257
8	UK Car Park Management Ltd	402,127
9	Ranger Services Ltd on behalf of  CP Plus Ltd	401,711
10	Parkmaven Limited	392,997

Source: Churchill Insurance 2025

Castle

ParkingMad said:

Apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere.

It’s interesting that the companies issuing the most PCNs aren’t the ones with the most Court claims. 

https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2025/06032025.html

 

• Private parking companies are requesting vehicle ownership data, which assists them in issuing parking tickets every two seconds
• Private parking companies made a record 7.8 million requests to the DVLA for vehicle keeper records in the first six months of 2024/25 financial year 
• 2024/25 is on track to beat the record 12.7 million requests made in 2023/24 financial year 
• Requests have surged 85 per cent in five years while the number of companies requesting data rose by 45 per cent in the same period

Table 2: Top 10 parking management companies requesting vehicle ownership data in 2023/24: 

	Parking Management Company	Number of Requests
1	ParkingEye Ltd	2,232,254        (2,300,360)
2	Euro Car Parks Limited	1,638,886        (1,733,493)
3	Horizon Parking Limited	770,774           (   875,833)
4	APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd	733,257           (   960,482)
5	Smart Parking Ltd	664,140           (   626,570)
6	Civil Enforcement Ltd	591,153           (   684,864)
7	UK Parking Control Limited     (UKPC)	573,257           (   579,806)
8	UK Car Park Management Ltd	402,127           (   444,678)
9	Ranger Services Ltd on behalf of  CP Plus Ltd	401,711           (   493,026)
10	Parkmaven Limited	392,997           (   519,481)

Source: Churchill Insurance 2025

The KADOE volumes for 2024/25 are now available on the DVLA website. Total requests for the year ended 31st March 2025 were 14,371,841 and the 2024/25 requests for the PPC's listed above are shown in brackets.

I wonder if the 31% increase in the requests made by APCOA are due to the removal of barriers at Airports.

The 2024/25 total for Smart Parking doesn't include the 157,894 requests made by "Local Parking Security Ltd" in the quarter to 31st March 2025.