Height barriers explained
Why car parks fit them, what the common heights are, how to measure your van properly, and what happens if you hit one.
A height barrier is not a legal instrument. It is a metal bar, and it does not care what any order says. It is also the most common reason a promising stop turns out to be useless when you arrive.
Unlike a restriction you can argue about, this one is settled by geometry in the dark, at the entrance, with someone behind you.
Why they are there
Councils fit them for reasons that have nothing to do with you:
- To keep out fly-tippers arriving in tipper trucks
- To prevent unauthorised encampments
- To stop HGVs using a car park as an overnight lorry park
- Occasionally, and openly, to keep motorhomes out
Whatever the motive, the effect is the same. A barrier is often a better indicator of a council's intent than the signage — a car park with a 2.0m barrier and no explicit motorhome ban has still made its position clear.
The heights you will actually meet
| Height | Where | What gets through |
|---|---|---|
| 1.9 m | Older multi-storeys, town centres | Cars, small camper conversions |
| 2.0 m | The most common barrier in Britain | Most car-derived vans; almost no motorhomes |
| 2.1 m | Common in coastal and retail car parks | High-top vans, at a squeeze |
| 2.3 m | Occasional | Many panel-van conversions |
| No barrier | Park & ride, edge-of-town, aires | Everything |
Park & ride sites are frequently open-topped, because they are built for buses. That is why they appear so often as the practical answer for anything larger than a van conversion.
Measuring your van properly — the bit people get wrong
Measure to the highest point, not to the roofline. What sticks up:
- Satellite dish, especially raised
- Solar panels and their mounting rails
- Roof box, kayak bars, ladder
- TV or radio aerial
- Air conditioning unit
- Roof vents and skylights, particularly when open
Add a margin. Suspension changes with load, tyre pressures change with temperature, and barriers are not always at the height printed on them.
Then write it inside the cab. Not in a notebook, not in your phone — on a label where the driver can see it. The moment you need the number is the moment you cannot look it up.
If you hit one
- Damage is yours. Hitting a fixed, signed barrier is a driver error, and insurers treat it as such. Many policies exclude or limit height-related damage.
- You may also be liable for the barrier, and for the car park's costs.
- Roof damage is expensive out of proportion to how minor it looks — a cracked skylight surround leaks into the structure and rots it quietly.
The number of motorhomes written off by barriers each year is not small.
What we do about it
We store height restrictions as a structured field rather than as a sentence in a description, and we score them against your vehicle's actual height rather than a generic "motorhome". A stop with a 2.1m barrier is not shown as a possible option for a 2.65m van that will not fit — it is shown as a failure, with the barrier height and where the figure came from.
We also show barriers on the road, not only on the stop. Being told about a barrier at the destination is less useful than being told about one on the approach.
Where a council has published a car park inventory, we cite it. Where a traveller reported it, we say that instead — and a barrier reported with a photograph outranks one reported without.
In one line
Measure to the highest thing on your roof, add a margin, write it in the cab — and treat a 2.0m barrier as the most reliable "no" in British camping.
Last reviewed 21 August 2026. Barriers are installed and removed without notice. If a barrier has gone, or a new one has appeared, tell us — it is one of the most useful corrections anyone can make.