Private parking companies obtained 4.7 million vehicle keeper records from the DVLA in the last financial year, new data has revealed.
According to data obtained by the RAC Foundation, this is an increase of just over a million records compared with the 2015/16 financial year and an annual increase of 28%.
These statistics suggest a parking ticket is now issued once every seven seconds in the UK.
The RAC Foundation said the vast majority of this information is likely to have been used by parking operators to send penalty charge notices to drivers who have broken parking rules.
The DVLA charges £2.50 per record, and last year, 109 companies bought data from the Government organisation.
“These numbers are eye-watering. We all hoped the problems associated with parking on private land would go away when clamping was outlawed in 2012. It turns out we hoped in vain. Since the ban there has been a surge in ticketing. Something is clearly going awry,” said Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation. “Time and again we hear stories of people who feel that the terms were unclear, the tone of communication intimidating and the price of even the shortest accidental overstay extortionate.
“The number of vehicle keeper requests that private parking companies make on behalf of their landowner clients is a barometer for how well the private parking system is working, and we believe that the barometer is reading ‘stormy weather’. It is high time that politicians – thinking of their election prospects – and landowners alike woke up to the calls for a better, fairer, properly regulated approach.”