Five minutes to decide, ten minutes to leave, and £20 for a wrong digit
What happened
On 19 October 2026 the government published a new Private Parking Code of Practice, and laid it before Parliament the following day. It sets rules for the private firms that run car parks at supermarkets, retail parks, hospitals, leisure centres and blocks of flats. These are the companies that send a charge in the post, not councils issuing penalty notices. The headline changes are specific. Drivers get a guaranteed five minutes to decide whether to park, and ten minutes to leave once their session ends. Charges will be cancelled on appeal for honest mistakes, such as stopping briefly to check directions, and for situations like a medical emergency, a breakdown or a broken ticket machine. Smaller slip-ups are capped. Forgetting a permit, typing in the wrong vehicle's registration, or failing to confirm the registration in the machine will carry a maximum charge of £20 on appeal. The overall maximum parking charge is frozen at £100. The enforcement lever is data. Operators who do not comply risk losing access to DVLA records, which is how they find out who owns a car. Without that, a charge is very hard to pursue. Operators will also have to report figures on charges issued and appeals handled. The same announcement adds car clocking, winding back a car's odometer, to the list of banned practices under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, for businesses selling cars to consumers. Just under 17 million private parking charges were issued in the UK last year. A 2025 consultation drew 4,526 responses. The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said being a few minutes late "shouldn't end with a hefty fine landing on your doormat". Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said "parking should be straightforward, not another everyday hassle". Kate Dearden, Minister for Consumer Action, said of clocking: "Nobody works hard for their money just to be deceived by a dodgy trader."
Why this matters
Seventeen million charges a year is roughly one for every four people in the country. Most of them are not disputed because most of them are not worth the fight: people pay to make the letters stop. That is the behaviour the grace periods target. A great many charges come from the first and last few minutes of a visit. You pull in, read the sign, decide the price is silly and leave again. Or the app will not load, or there is a queue at the machine, or you are helping someone slow out of the car. Five minutes at the start and ten at the end is a small change that removes a large slice of those charges. The £20 cap on typing errors matters for a different reason. Getting a digit wrong in a registration has, until now, been treated the same as not paying at all, which is how someone who paid the correct amount for the correct length of time could still receive a £100 demand. Capping it at £20 on appeal keeps a consequence while removing the absurdity. The DVLA access point is the part with real teeth. Codes of practice in this sector have been published and withdrawn before. What makes this one different is that non-compliance threatens the thing operators need most: the ability to look up a keeper's address. Freezing the maximum at £100 is worth reading carefully too. It is a freeze, not a cut.
What the evidence actually says
Two honest qualifications. First, this is a code laid before Parliament, not a law in force today. Parliament will scrutinise it, and ministers will then bring it into force "as soon as possible". Until that happens, the old arrangements apply. Reporting has said operators were given until December 2026 to comply, but the effective date is not something to plan around yet. Second, the industry and motoring groups disagree about how much it achieves. The British Parking Association has said many of the principles in the new framework are already reflected in its existing voluntary code. The RAC called it a "step in the right direction" while warning it was "not the leap" it had campaigned for. Both reactions are consistent with the detail: the grace periods and the £20 cap are concrete gains, and the £100 maximum is unchanged. There is more still to come. The government says it will consult "as soon as possible next year" on private parking debt recovery fees, including whether to cut the existing £70 cap or scrap those fees altogether. A further consultation on the remaining Competition and Markets Authority recommendations will follow publication of the code. Once the code is in force, an independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board will be set up. The code applies in England, Scotland and Wales. On clocking, the change is narrower than it first sounds. It bans the practice for businesses selling cars to consumers. It is a consumer protection measure, which means it bites on traders rather than on private sales between individuals.
Qurexa perspective
We will keep this short, because the connection is small but real. A fair number of private parking charges are collected from hospital car parks, health centres and the retail parks where pharmacies sit. We hear about it from the people we deliver to: the carer who ran in for a prescription that was not ready, waited twenty minutes, and got a charge for the trouble. The ten-minute exit grace period will not fix a pharmacy queue, but it does take some of the sting out of a short errand that overran. If a pharmacy trip is a recurring difficulty, whether because of parking, mobility or time, it is worth knowing that prescription delivery is widely available. Many local community pharmacies deliver, and that is often the simplest answer because they already hold your record. We do it too. Either way, the trip is avoidable more often than people assume.
Practical advice
Until the code is in force, and after, these are the things that make a difference: Photograph the signs. Not just the barrier, the actual terms board, including the small print and the operator's name. Charges are frequently overturned because signage was unclear or badly placed, and you cannot argue that from memory. Keep the evidence of payment. A screenshot of the app, the card transaction, or the ticket. If you typed a registration wrongly, the proof that you paid the right amount for the right time is what gets you to the £20 cap rather than £100. Appeal first to the operator, then to the independent appeals service, and keep it factual. Set out what happened, attach the evidence, and reference the grace period or the honest-mistake grounds once the code is in force. If you had a medical emergency or a breakdown, say so and evidence it. A breakdown report, a recovery invoice or an appointment letter carries weight. Do not ignore letters, and do not assume they are fake. Private charges are enforceable through the civil courts if the operator has your keeper details. Appealing is the route, not silence. On used cars, check the mileage against the MOT history on GOV.UK before you buy. It is free, takes a minute, and will show a reading that has gone backwards. That check is the single most effective defence against clocking, whoever you are buying from.
What to know
The government published a new Private Parking Code of Practice on 19 October 2026 and laid it before Parliament on 20 October. It guarantees drivers five minutes to decide whether to park and ten minutes to leave, cancels charges on appeal for honest mistakes and situations such as medical emergencies, breakdowns or broken ticket machines, caps minor errors like a mistyped registration at £20 on appeal, and freezes the maximum charge at £100. Operators who fail to comply risk losing DVLA data access, and must report on charges and appeals. Car clocking is being added to the banned practices list for businesses selling cars to consumers. Just under 17 million private parking charges were issued in the UK last year. The code is not yet in force, a consultation on debt recovery fees is promised for next year, and the £70 recovery fee cap is unchanged for now. Practical steps: photograph the signage, keep payment evidence, appeal with facts, and check a used car's mileage against its MOT history on GOV.UK. Sources: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government / GOV.UK, "PM puts the brakes on rip-off parking charges and car scams", 19 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-puts-the-brakes-on-rip-off-parking-charges-and-car-scams ; Fleet News, "New rules for private parking companies fail to protect drivers", October 2026, https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/new-rules-for-private-parking-companies-fail-to-protect-drivers ; Yahoo News UK, "Burnham vows end to 'rip-off parking charges' under new rules", 19 October 2026, https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/burnham-vows-end-rip-off-213020642.html This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
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