The foreword to the Government's 2022 Private Parking Code of Practice (currently under review) states: 'Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists.
My friend, trying to work out how much these private parking firms are making, said: 'If each of these 22,000 fines is £60 that is £1.32million a day – nearly half a billion pounds a year.'.
One woman spent a year fighting another firm which took her to court over £1,900 of fines because she was unable to pay her parking tariff within the five minutes they demanded.
He didn't realise the short time he spent driving around the complex, looking for a space, would count towards his total – leading to him receiving a £60 fine.
There was no indication that 20 minutes' 'parking' would cover the time of driving in, finding a space and then driving out again.
