Drivers who own high end cars including Kia, BMW, Tesla and Range Rover are now banned from parking their vehicles in UK car parks.
Owners of seven popular cars from top-selling brands like BMW, Kia, and Mercedes have been hit with a startling revelation that they’re now banned from parking in public car parks. This unexpected ban arises from an obscure regulation about the length of parking spaces.
Autocar has confirmed with five local councils that vehicles too lengthy for their provided spots are now officially prohibited from using any council-operated car parks. Vehicles exceeding five metres in length will find no space in these car parks, where the parking bay size maxes out at just 4.8 metres.
As cars have generally increased in size over time, this poses an issue as councils stand ready to penalise drivers whose vehicles overflow the boundaries of parking bays, the Express reports. New Forest Council shed light on the issue: “The standard parking space has remained at a consistent size for several decades.
“However, national research has shown that on average, cars have got larger over time, both in width and in length.”
They pointed out the rising growth in vehicle dimensions which has drastically increased over the years.
The council stated: “In 1965 the top five models sold in the UK had an average width of 1.5 m and average length of 3.9 m, compared to an average width of 1.8 m and length of 4.3 m for the top five sellers of 2020.”
Some of the luxury best selling vehicles which could be affected by the ban include the Mercedes S-Class, Tesla Model S and the BMW 7 Series.
Swanky SUVs such as Range Rovers, Audi A8, the Kia EV9 and the opulent Rolls Royce Cullinan are also at risk but there are others including high end sports car which would also be barred.
An FOI request from Autocar was submitted to every council in the UK.
They enquired whether they planned to extend parking bays to accommodate longer cars, now a common sight on British roads, as many have not been updated for decades.
Five local authorities so far in Wokingham, South Hampshire, Broadland, South Suffolk and West Devon, have informed Autocar that they had effectively prohibited any cars which don’t fit into their spaces.
Wokingham Council has now published the details of the FOI on its website.
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The council was asked: “Are cars exceeding a certain length banned from any of your car parks?”
In response, the council stated: “We have a limit on size of vehicle and weight of vehicle allowed to use the car parks these were introduced at different dates as shown below.
“Since June 2023 All motor vehicles whose maximum length does not exceed 5,00 metres and overall height exceeds 2.10 metres and whose gross weight does not exceed 3050 kilogrammes, except for access.”
Owners of the cars which are potentially at risk will need to keep an eye out on updates from their local council.
