How England’s New Pavement Parking Fines Will Work (and Who Gets the Power to Issue Them)

England is getting new powers to fine drivers for parking on the pavement, but not the way most people expect. There will be no national ban and no single fine that applies everywhere. Instead, the power to prohibit pavement parking and issue penalties will be handed to individual local authorities, one council at a time, following a consultation that drew more than 15,000 responses and confirmed what most drivers already suspected: pavement parking is a problem almost everywhere, and enforcement of it has been almost nowhere.

The government published its formal response to the “Pavement parking: options for change” consultation in January 2026, six years after the consultation itself closed. Among individual respondents, 81 per cent said pavement parking was a problem in their area. Among organisations, that figure rose to 96 per cent. The legal mechanism to finally act on that response arrived on 29 April 2026, when the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill received Royal Assent.

Who gets the power, and who does not

Rather than a Westminster-wide rule, the new Act allows the Secretary of State to make regulations giving each English local transport authority the power to prohibit pavement parking in its own area and enforce that prohibition with fixed penalty notices. In areas with an elected mayor, the power sits with what the Act calls a “Strategic Authority.” Everywhere else, it sits with the unitary authority or county council acting as the local transport authority.

That structure means two neighbouring towns could end up with completely different rules. One council might roll out enforcement within months of gaining the power. A neighbouring authority with a tighter budget or a different political priority might leave it for years. London already operates a pavement parking prohibition under separate, older legislation, and the fine range expected for the rest of England, £60 to £130, has been modelled directly on London’s existing penalty structure.

Councils will also decide their own timetable for applying to central government for the power, meaning the rollout could stretch across several years rather than arriving in one go. Areas with the loudest local campaigns and the most organised council transport teams are likely to move first. Rural counties with smaller highways budgets and a longer list of competing priorities could take considerably longer, leaving residents in some parts of the country waiting years for enforcement that neighbours a few miles away already have.

Highways officials have privately suggested that the first wave of local prohibition orders is unlikely to appear before the second half of 2027, once the secondary legislation and guidance for councils is finalised. That timeline means the interim obstruction power is likely to carry most of the practical enforcement load for well over a year, a detail that has frustrated campaigners who had hoped Royal Assent would translate into visible change on the ground within months rather than years.

An interim fix while the main powers are drafted

As the full regulations under the new Act will take time to draft and roll out authority by authority, the government has also committed to secondary legislation in 2026 that gives councils a more limited, interim power: the ability to enforce against unnecessary obstruction of the pavement, using uniformed civil enforcement officers, without waiting for the full prohibition powers to be switched on locally. This is designed as a stopgap so that the worst obstruction cases, a car mounted fully across a narrow pavement with no room for a wheelchair or pushchair to pass, do not have to wait years for a fix while the wider legal framework catches up.

For drivers, the practical effect is a period of real uncertainty. The legal basis for enforcement exists now. Whether your specific street, town or county has switched enforcement on is a separate question entirely, and the honest answer for most of England right now is that it has not, yet. Nothing in the new law tells a driver, at a glance, whether the street they park on tonight carries a fine tomorrow.

What the six-year delay means

The original consultation ran under a different government and closed in 2020. Campaign group Living Streets has pushed for reform throughout the gap, arguing that pavement parking disproportionately affects wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs, blind and partially sighted pedestrians and older people who rely on a clear, level surface to walk safely. Every year the reform was delayed, councils outside London were left relying on a patchwork of local traffic regulation orders that vary street by street and are expensive and slow to put in place individually.

Scotland moved first. A pavement parking ban has already been in force there from 2023 under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, giving campaigners a working example to point to when arguing that England’s delay was avoidable rather than technically necessary. Wales has also signalled its own intention to legislate, leaving England as the last of the three nations to formally act. England closed its own consultation before either Scotland or Wales moved, a gap between who consulted first and who legislated first that has become a recurring talking point for campaigners frustrated by the pace of change.

Local authorities in Scotland report that their ban has been comparatively simple to enforce once the legal footing was in place, largely as it applies uniformly rather than requiring each council to draft and adopt its own local order street by street. Campaigners in England have pointed to that experience as evidence that a single consistent rule, rather than the patchwork approach chosen for England, would have delivered faster and more predictable results for pedestrians nationwide.

How to fight back

Check with your local council directly to find out whether it has applied for or been granted pavement parking enforcement powers, as there is no single national tracker yet showing which authorities have switched enforcement on. Most councils publish updates on parking policy changes through their transport or highways pages.

If you already have a specific obstruction problem on your street, most councils can act now under existing highways law where a parked vehicle causes a genuine obstruction, without needing to wait for the new powers. Report persistent obstruction to your council’s highways enforcement team and to the police non-emergency line if the obstruction is severe enough to block a wheelchair user or a parent with a pram entirely.

If you drive and rely on kerbside space as your street has no driveway, plan ahead for the change rather than being caught out by it. Where practical, park with two wheels on the road rather than fully mounting the pavement, and check whether your street already has a local traffic regulation order restricting pavement parking, as some already do even ahead of the wider rollout.

Disabled and older residents who rely on level pavements for mobility scooters, wheelchairs or walking frames can raise specific problem streets directly with their council’s access or equalities officer, a route that often moves faster than a general highways complaint, especially where a named individual’s daily route is affected.

Businesses that depend on pavement access, including local cafes with outdoor seating, shopfront traders and delivery firms operating in built-up areas, should also start reviewing their own kerbside habits now, well ahead of any local rollout. Councils introducing enforcement powers will not typically offer a grace period once a scheme goes live locally, and a fixed penalty notice issued to a delivery driver blocking a pavement outside a shop can land on the business rather than the individual driver depending on how the vehicle is registered.

For related coverage on how difficult it already is to challenge an unfair parking charge, see our report on how few penalty charges are ever successfully appealed.

Sources:

• Department for Transport, Pavement Parking Consultation Government Response, January 2026
• Hansard, Pavement Parking Consultation Response statement, 8 January 2026
• English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, Royal Assent 29 April 2026
• Living Streets campaign briefings on pavement parking