Motorists are slapped with a parking fine every two seconds by private car park operators, according to stunning new research.
Private parking companies made more than 7.8 million requests to the DVLA to obtain vehicle keeper records in the first six months of the 2024/25 financial year.
These requests are used to issue parking tickets to drivers and represent over 43,000 requests a day, or almost one every two seconds.
The 2024/25 financial year is likely to see the highest number of vehicle requests in the last seven years.
Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailingmotoring@gbnews.uk
Drivers are hit with hefty parking fines every two seconds, new data has found
GETTY
Since 2018/19, the number of requests to the DVLA from private parking companies has surged by a staggering 85 per cent as drivers get slapped with more penalty charge notices.
The number of parking companies requesting access has also grown from 133 in 2018 to 193 this financial year, a rise of 45 per cent.
The data from Churchill Motor Insurance reported that almost half of the vehicle keeper requests issued were from just five private parking companies.
This includes ParkingEye Ltd (2.2 million requests), Euro Car Parks Limited (1.6 million), Horizon Parking Limited (770,000), APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd (733,000) and Smart Parking Ltd (664,000).
To obtain the ownership data, private parking companies are required to pay the DVLA £2.50 per request, which is charged to recover the cost of providing the information.
Once the parking ticket is issued to the motorist, they can be fined up to £100 if they were found to have broken parking rules.
Nicholas Mantel, head of Churchill Motor Insurance, said: "Anyone using a private parking space needs to follow the rules of the specific car park, which should be clearly displayed, or they could risk a parking ticket.
"Rules often differ by location, so we would encourage all drivers to check carefully for the terms and conditions of use, to avoid being issued with a potentially expensive parking ticket."
Mantel also provided advice to drivers if they have been slapped with a fine and they believe mitigating circumstances or an error could have taken place.
He said it was "crucial" for motorists to gather as much evidence as possible to boost their chances of successfully appealing the parking fine.
This could include the ticket itself, screenshots of an associated parking app or even a picture of where their car was parked with a timestamp included in the image.
While drivers can be slapped with a penalty charge notice from their local council, these are regulated under statutory law, whereas private parking firms operate under a code of practice.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Pensioner, 93, with dementia hit with criminal conviction from DVLA case for not having car insurance
- Electric vehicle owners to receive huge £40million boost for more on-street chargers - 'Great step'
- Anti-Ulez boroughs see air pollution levels improve the most after Sadiq Khan's expansion - 'So important'
Almost half of all vehicle record requests came from just five companies
RAWPIXEL
These regulations are set out by the British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC), who have recently introduced new rules to help drivers.
As of February 17, 2025, motorists across the UK will be protected by CCTV cameras if they experience delays in making a payment, essentially removing the controversial "five-minute rule".
