£5m ‘illegal’ diplomatic bay parking fines could be repaid

Central London councils could be forced to pay back up to £5 million in parking fines after it emerged that hundreds of bays have been operating illegally for decades.

The 346 diplomatic bays reserved for foreign embassy staff across five boroughs needed road signs approved by the Department of Transport. But the councils, including Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Camden and Islington, failed to get proper permission.

As a result their signs did not comply with the law which means that every parking fine and car clamping in the unauthorised bays since the Seventies could be unenforceable. Under the Town and Country Planning Act the signs were classed as "illegal obstructions of the highway".

Nick Herron, of the Motorists' Legal Challenge groups, said: "It is probably the biggest parking admission ever across the country and will have huge implications."

By law, every motorist given a ticket in the past six years in such cases could be able to reclaim the money. Kevin Goad, of Westminster council, which has 196 bays and issued 1,463 tickets in them last year, said: "No reasonably observant person could have thought that these bays were not solely reserved for diplomats."