Five-minute parking rule could be scrapped by end of the month – here’s why
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Drivers could soon have more than five minutes to pay for car parking following a shake-up. Currently, private car parks offer motorists five minutes to pay for their parking before they are at risk of being penalised. But the rule is to be reviewed after body-builder and makeup artist Rosey Hudson was fined £1,906 by a private firm in Derby for regularly taking longer to buy her ticket.
She refused to pay the fine, saying there was no ticket machine at the car park and poor signal meant she had to walk further away to buy her ticket via an app on her phone. Ms Hudson was summoned to court, but eventually the fine was withdrawn. The British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC) have now said a new panel will revise their private parking code of conduct – which was introduced last year -to ensure it ‘protects genuine motorists who have difficulty making prompt payment on entry’.
They also said the panel will ‘fast-track updates to the code to reflect technological advancements’. It’s hoped the five minute rule will be relaxed by as early as February 1. The panel will then conduct a full review of the code of conduct. It comes after private parking businesses have been accused of using misleading and confusing signs, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fines.
And in November it emerged that an average of 41,000 parking tickets are being issued a day by firms. Some 3.8 million tickets were handed out between July and September 2024, according to analysis of Government data by the PA news agency and motoring research charity the RAC Foundation.
