The number of penalty tickets issued to drivers parking on private land has shot up by almost a million in just 12 months, reaching a new high.

Parking firms could be issuing a penalty notice every six seconds, according to the DVLA data.

Analysis of DVLA data by the RAC Foundation shows that car parking management firms were given 5.65 million sets of vehicle keeper records in the last financial year – up by 20% from 4.71 million in the previous financial year and 3.67 million in 2015/16.

This could mean the industry is issuing a penalty notice every six seconds: the equivalent of 11 per minute, 645 per hour and 15,486 per day.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “Each year we publish this analysis and each year we are not only astonished by the numbers involved, but also by the fact that those numbers keep rocketing up.

“The true volume of tickets being issued might actually be significantly higher still as some firms will simply slap a demand onto a windscreen for the driver to find when they return to their vehicle.”

Gooding also reiterated the RAC Foundation’s support for a private members’ bill that seeks to protect drivers from unscrupulous private car parking companies, which he said would “establish much-needed independent scrutiny of what’s going on in the private parking world”.

“Only then can we be reassured that the cards aren’t stacked against the motorist,” he added.