Pub car parks
The most reliable legal overnight stop in the UK, because the landlord can simply say yes. How to ask, what the arrangement usually is, and why turning up unannounced is the thing that ruins it.
A pub car park is private land, so the landlord can give you permission. That single fact makes it the most straightforward legal overnight stop in the country — and the one most travellers get wrong by not asking.
Everywhere else on this site we are explaining what an order, a byelaw or an Act permits. Here there is no order to read. There is a person, and you ask them.
Why this is different from every other kind of stop
| Kind of place | Who decides |
|---|---|
| Council car park | A Traffic Regulation Order, and possibly a PSPO |
| Lay-by | The highway authority, and any order over that road |
| Motorway services | The operator's contract terms and a time limit |
| Pub car park | The landlord. That is the whole list |
There is no legal instrument to research. If the person who runs the pub says yes, you are there lawfully.
What the arrangement usually is
Most pub stopovers work on the same unwritten deal, and it is worth understanding before you ask:
- You eat or drink there. That is the point for them. The parking is not the product
- You arrive in the evening and leave in the morning. Typically after 18:00, away by 10:00 or 11:00
- One night. Two if you ask and they are quiet
- You stay self-contained. No awning, no chairs, no windbreak, no barbecue
- You leave nothing. Including no waste, and no water tipped onto their car park
Some pubs charge a small fee, some take a deposit refunded against a meal, most charge nothing. Do not assume it is free, and do not treat a free space as the deal being one-sided — the meal is the payment.
How to ask
Ring in the afternoon. Not during service, not at 9pm when you are already parked outside. Mid-afternoon on a weekday, you will usually get the person who can actually decide.
What to say is short:
"Hi — I'm travelling in a campervan and I'll be passing this evening. Do you allow vans to stay overnight in your car park if we eat with you? It's a [6-metre] van, we'd be gone by [ten]."
That sentence does three things: it says what you want, it offers them the trade, and it gives them the size — which is often the real reason for a no.
If they say no, thank them and go. Some pubs have had a bad experience, some have a tenancy agreement that forbids it, and some simply have no room to turn a van around.
What gets a pub to stop offering it
Worth knowing, because these are the reasons landlords give when they say no to the next person:
- Turning up unannounced and asking at 10pm, when the answer has to be no
- Not buying anything. A car park is a cost to them; the meal is what makes it work
- Awnings, chairs and encampment. A van parked overnight is invisible. A camp is not
- Waste. Grey water on the tarmac, or worse, ends the arrangement permanently
- Staying a second night without asking
- Being too big for the space and blocking their deliveries or their customers
Every one of those is somebody else's fault before it is yours, and every one of them makes the next van less welcome.
The legal points that do still apply
Even with permission, three things are not the landlord's to give away:
Fire access. Keep clear of fire exits and access routes. This is not negotiable and is not about you.
Alcohol licensing. If you are staying on licensed premises the pub's licence conditions may have something to say about it. That is their problem to know, not yours to solve — but it is occasionally the real reason for a no.
Private parking enforcement. Some pub car parks are managed by a third-party parking company on the pub's behalf, with ANPR cameras and a time limit. The landlord's permission does not always reach the parking operator's system. If there are cameras and signs, ask explicitly whether your registration needs adding to their list — otherwise a private parking charge can arrive in the post weeks later even though you had permission the whole time. A Traffic Regulation Order has nothing to do with it; this is a contract claim by a private company, under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
That last one catches people who did everything right.
What about the 28-day rule?
A pub letting a few self-contained vans stay overnight is a different thing from running a caravan site, and the rule everyone quotes has largely been superseded in England anyway. The 28-day rule, and what replaced it.
In one line
Ring mid-afternoon, offer to eat there, give them your length, arrive in the evening and be gone by ten — and if the car park has ANPR cameras, ask whether your plate needs adding.
Last reviewed 22 August 2026. Arrangements are set by individual businesses and change. General guidance, not legal advice.