Railway Byelaws and
Station Parking Charges
For years the strongest thing you could say about a station car park charge was that the keeper-liability rules did not reach it. That stopped being true on 26 December 2025. Here is what replaced it, and what it means for an appeal now.
The law that lets a parking company bill you, the registered keeper, POFA Schedule 4, only covers what it calls relevant land. Land already controlled by its own statute was carved out, and station car parks ran under the Railway Byelaws. They fell inside that carve-out, so no keeper liability could arise at a station at all.
The Definition of Relevant Land (Amendment) Order 2025 took the Railway Byelaws back out of that exclusion with effect from 26 December 2025. Station car parks in England and Wales are now relevant land, and the operator can pursue the keeper. The trade-off is that they now have to follow Schedule 4 to the letter, which they never had to do before, and that is where these appeals are won today.
Where a station charge is vulnerable now
The ground has moved from the land to the paperwork. These are the checks that matter on a station notice.
Caught by camera with no ticket on the windscreen, the Notice to Keeper must reach you within 14 days of the day after the parking event. After a windscreen ticket, the window is 28 to 56 days. Miss it and keeper liability is gone, exactly as at any other car park.
Schedule 4 dictates what the notice must say, down to specific statements about the driver and the period for payment. Operators writing station notices for the first time are working from templates that were never drafted to this standard.
The matching byelaw order removed criminal liability in England and Wales for parking contraventions covered by a contractual scheme. A station notice that still warns of byelaw prosecution for an unpaid tariff is describing a regime that no longer applies to it.
Bringing station car parks inside POFA also brings them inside its prohibition on immobilising or removing a vehicle as a means of enforcement. The byelaws keep a removal power only for genuine cases such as obstruction or emergency access to the railway.
Where the old rule still holds
The change was deliberately narrow. It named the national Railway Byelaws and nothing else, and the Department for Transport was explicit that land under other forms of statutory control stays outside Schedule 4. Three situations are unaffected.
- Scotland. Schedule 4 extends to England and Wales only, so keeper liability has never applied at a Scottish station and still does not. The Railway Byelaws Amendment Order 2025 split the parking byelaw in two precisely to keep the Scottish position as it was.
- Parking before 26 December 2025. The order carries no transitional provision, so the law at the date of the parking event is what counts. An older station charge is still on land that was outside Schedule 4 when the car was parked.
- Other byelaw land. Airports under the Airports Act 1986, ports, harbours and London Underground car parks are all governed by their own byelaws, which this order did not touch. Our airport drop-off guide covers the airport position, which is now the more interesting one.
Operators that manage UK station car parks
Station parking is contracted out, so the name on your notice tells you who manages the site rather than how well they have adapted to the new regime. The operators we see most often at stations are Indigo Park Services, SABA Parking, APCOA and NCP.
What changes between them is the appeals route and the code of practice they are bound by, which is why the first thing we check is which accredited trade association the operator belongs to. If your charge came from APCOA, our APCOA appeal guide covers their process specifically.
What not to do
Do not reply naming the driver, and do not explain that you were only dropping someone at the platform. Keeper liability now depends on the operator getting its paperwork right, and volunteering the driver's identity hands them the one thing that makes the paperwork beside the point. Say nothing until the appeal goes in properly.
Railway byelaws parking FAQ
In England and Wales it does, since 26 December 2025. Until then station car parks were byelaw land, governed by the Railway Byelaws made under section 219 of the Transport Act 2000, and sat outside Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 entirely, so no keeper liability could arise. An order made in November 2025 removed those byelaws from the definition that kept them out, and station car parks are now relevant land like any other private car park.
Two orders took effect the same day. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Definition of Relevant Land) (Amendment) Order 2025 excluded the national Railway Byelaws from the 'statutory provision' test in Schedule 4, which brought station car parks inside the keeper-liability regime. The Railway Byelaws Amendment Order 2025 then removed criminal liability for parking contraventions that are covered by a contractual parking scheme in England and Wales.
Not against a station charge in England and Wales for parking on or after 26 December 2025. That argument ended with the change in the law, and an appeal that still runs it will be rejected. It survives for parking before that date, in Scotland, and on land under other byelaws that the order did not touch.
Nothing changed. Schedule 4 of POFA extends to England and Wales only, so keeper liability has never been available at a Scottish station car park and still is not. The Department for Transport confirmed during consultation that there would be no change to railway car parking enforcement in Scotland. The operator there has to establish who was driving.
The order contains no transitional or saving provision, so the position at the date of the parking event governs. Parking before 26 December 2025 at a station in England and Wales was on land outside Schedule 4, and no keeper liability could arise from it. These cases are now uncommon but they do still surface when an operator has sat on a debt.
Station car parks are commonly managed by operators such as Indigo, SABA, APCOA and NCP on behalf of the train operating company or Network Rail. What matters more than the name is whether the notice they sent satisfies Schedule 4, which most of them had no reason to comply with before this change.
AppealPilot is not a law firm and this page is not legal advice. It describes the position in England and Wales from 26 December 2025. We present the argument; the operator and, where relevant, the independent assessor decide it.
Related parking appeal guides
The done-for-you service: we check the notice against Schedule 4 and appeal to Indigo, SABA, APCOA or NCP for £10.
The full guide to Schedule 4, which now governs station car parks as it does any other private car park.
Work your station notice through the prescribed-information requirements it now has to satisfy.
We check the notice against the rules that now apply and put the operator to proof. £10 flat, money back if a covered appeal is unsuccessful.