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Under a new Parking Code of Practice introduced by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on Monday, the maximum fine in the city will be reduced from £100 to £50.

The 10 Sheffield streets where you are most likely to get a parking ticket

Private car parks will also have to display prices more clearly, use a fairer appeal system and give drivers a 10-minute grace period for lateness, according to the new rules.

Sheffield’s Motorists will receive greater protection from “aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees” through a 50 per cent cut to the private parking fine cap, the Government has said. File photo dated 01/08/13 of a parking ticket on a car windscreen as councils dished out parking fines at the rate of one every four seconds last year, it has been revealed. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday April 14, 2014. Local authorities issued around 7.8 million parking penalty charge notices (PNCs) in 2013. amounting to £255 million in fines, according to research by Churchill Car Insurance. And the figures could be even higher, as Churchill's statistics relate to responses from only 187 of the 435 UK councils contacted for data under the Freedom of Information Act. See PA story TRANSPORT Parking. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

The maximum charge will be reduced to £50 in most cases, or £70 for more serious breaches.

Private firms who breach the new code could also be banned from collecting fines in future, by having their access to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) data cut off.

Minister for Levelling Up, Neil O’Brien, said the new measures aim to protect motorists from “aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees”.

He said: “Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a system of misleading and confusing signage, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists.

“The new Code Of Practice will set out a clear vision with the interests of safe motorists at its heart, while cracking down on the worst offenders who put other people in danger and hinder our emergency services from carrying out their duties.”

Sheffield campaigners welcomed the move.

In February 2020, Deepa Shetty represented her partner David Doncaster in court after he was hit with a £100 charge for parking at the Berkeley Centre on Ecclesall Road in 2019.

The firm which runs the car park later increased the charge to £185 due to ‘late payment’, and threatened to pursue the claim in court if they did not pay.

Dr Shetty got the case thrown out in court. She felt at the time the appeals process was ‘a joke’

She said she was pleased to see new rules coming in.

She said she understood car parks needed controlling, but felt signs were often too small and caused problems for those who did not understand the system.

“I’m glad the Government is doing something about this.” she said. “It should make a difference. This is long overdue, and people who have been affected are often the elderly or people with anxiety issues.”

She said she had suggested the Government capped private fines line with council parking fines.

One Sheffield nurse, who works at the Northern General told The Star last week how she had been fined by a private parking company which was working for the Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust, when she parked in the Longley Centre car par, without realising her permit was not valid there.

She said she was fined and struggled to appeal the ticket, later receiving a solicitors letter and being told the fine had risen to £170.

Vehicle insurance and breakdown companies the AA and RAC have welcomed the new code.

President of the AA, Edmund King, said: “These much-needed upgrades to private parking rules will give better protection to drivers.”

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