Private car parks: UK drivers seek justice as penalties hit record

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Private car parks: UK drivers seek justice as penalties hit record
Author: Zoe Wood
Published: Jan, 18 2025 08:00

Recent cases in which charges have spiralled have reignited the row about how companies treat motorists. When a driver in Leicestershire was threatened with court action because she owed close to £2,000 in charges after taking too long to pay for stays in a Derby car park, the horror story went viral.

 [Zoe Wood]
Image Credit: the Guardian [Zoe Wood]

Rosey Hudson, whose sales job involved a stint in the nearby shopping centre, was unable to pay within the “maximum period of five minutes” flagged on the car park’s signs because the only payment machines she could see were broken and a poor phone signal prevented her from getting online. Instead, each time she used the car park, she paid the full £3.30 daily rate when she got to work, taking no more than half an hour to do so.

 [Parked car with multiple parking charge notice stickers on the windscreen]
Image Credit: the Guardian [Parked car with multiple parking charge notice stickers on the windscreen]

But soon £100 parking charge notices (PCNs) from the operator Excel Parking started arriving, 10 in total covering days during a two-month period in 2023. She paid the first, but became increasingly angry about the injustice and sought to challenge the other charges.

 [RAC breakdown recovery van]
Image Credit: the Guardian [RAC breakdown recovery van]

“I appealed through Excel but all of them got rejected,” says Hudson, who decided to withhold payment on principle. “I was a bit hesitant to do this because after about six months I started to receive debt recovery letters, and one said that if you don’t pay, you could face a county court judgment.

 [Parking charge notice]
Image Credit: the Guardian [Parking charge notice]

“But something in me said ‘this isn’t right’ because they [Excel] haven’t financially lost anything. I paid the daily rate. So my heart was telling me to stick to my guns.”. Her action, first reported by the BBC, meant that by the end of last year the sum she owed had snowballed to more than £1,900 – a £70 debt recovery fee had been added to each ticket. Interest of 8% a year, a £115 court fee and £80 legal costs were added to the total.

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