Sorry, that was my bad. The I mistakenly believed that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman could investigate concerns about POPLA’s conduct. However, I forgot that POPLA is a private adjudication service, not a public body, and therefore falls outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
POPLA was created at the request of the UK Government as part of implementing the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA), which outlawed clamping on private land. The Government required an independent appeals service to justify keeper liability under Schedule 4 of PoFA.
In 2012, POPLA was launched and operated by London Councils under a 3-year contract with the British Parking Association (BPA). The BPA funded the service, but London Councils managed it independently. POPLA was meant to mirror statutory tribunals like PATAS and TPT, with legal adjudicators and annual reports.
It was always funded by the private parking sector via the BPA — £27+VAT per appeal.
In 2015, The BPA transferred POPLA’s operation to Ombudsman Services Ltd, a private dispute resolution company. This marked the shift from quasi-public oversight to industry-appointed private control.
POPLA is now industry-funded, industry-appointed, and not subject to statutory oversight. The BPA claims POPLA is “independent”, but it appoints the operator, pays for the service and controls the Code of Practice.
The so-called “Independent Board” overseeing POPLA is appointed by the BPA, with no public transparency or accountability. This system is structurally rigged:
• POPLA pretends to be independent, but is funded and appointed by the very industry it’s meant to regulate.
• The BPA is a trade body, not a regulator — its “oversight” is performative.
• The ICO and DVLA routinely sidestep accountability, especially when it comes to systemic failures rather than isolated data breaches.
And litigation, while winnable, puts the burden on the defendant to clean up a mess that should never have existed.
This isn’t just about one flawed decision — it’s about a deliberately opaque, self-serving framework designed to:
• Give the illusion of fairness
• Funnel motorists into a dead-end process
• Shield operators from real scrutiny
POPLA was created to satisfy the Government’s need for legitimacy under PoFA — but once the public-sector oversight ended, it became a closed loop of industry self-interest.
You could try explaining this to your MP, to raise the structural issue in Parliament, push for statutory oversight of private adjudication services and demand transparency and accountability in unregulated private parking enforcement.
For what it is worth, you could ask them to question the current government as to when they are going to implement the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019? In 2019 The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 received Royal Assent. It placed a legal duty on the Secretary of State to create a statutory Code of Practice for private parking operators.
In February 2022 the Government finally published the draft Code of Practice, nearly three years after the Act was passed. This delay was due to consultations and development work with the British Standards Institution (BSI).
In June 2022 the draft Code was withdrawn following legal challenges from parking firms and their trade bodies, the BPA and IPC, who objected to lower charge caps and the ban on debt recovery fees.
In 2023 and 2024 the Government conducted further impact assessments and calls for evidence to address industry concerns. No statutory Code is in force during this time.
However, whilst the Act was introduced to fix exactly the kind of systemic failure we're dealing with here, its implementation has been delayed, diluted, and derailed by the very parking industry through their powerful lobbying. So, whilst the Act was passed in 2019, the Code wasn’t even drafted until 2022.
The parking industry successfully lobbied to block its implementation. As a result, the sector remains self-regulated, with no statutory oversight or binding standards.
This month a new consultation was launched to revive the Code. It closes on 5 September 2025. Please have your say here:
Open consultation-Private parking code of practice