The UK Department for Transport has published new guidance setting out how local parking measures can be used to support disabled people and to bolster the national Blue Badge scheme.
The document, titled Guidance: Using local parking measures to support disabled people and published by the Department on 14 October 2026, explains how local authorities may make use of their existing powers to design and operate local schemes that sit alongside the national Blue Badge framework.
Purpose and scope of the guidance
The guidance aims to clarify for local authorities the options available under their current legal powers for creating parking measures with the specific intention of supporting disabled people, and it expressly frames those measures as complementary to the national Blue Badge scheme.
It does not change the national Blue Badge scheme itself but provides local authorities with a route to consider how local parking provision and controls can be aligned with the scheme's objectives, using the powers they already hold.
How local authorities are expected to use the guidance
The Department presents the guidance as practical direction for local decision makers, setting out the legal and operational context in which local parking measures may be adopted to sit alongside national arrangements, and signalling that action at the local level is part of the overall approach to supporting disabled motorists and pedestrians.
The guidance is addressed to those charged with designing and implementing parking policy at local level, with the intention that local schemes will operate within the existing legislative framework while supporting the aims of the Blue Badge regime.
The Department for Transport published the guidance to provide clarity to councils and other local bodies about the scope for local measures, and to describe the relationship between those measures and the national scheme; the publication date is recorded as 14 October 2026 on the Department’s website.
The guidance is presented as a means of enabling local authorities to consider how their parking arrangements might better support disabled people while remaining consistent with national policy, and it forms part of the Department's information for local government and stakeholders on disability-related transport provision.
Local adoption of the measures described in the guidance will rest with individual authorities acting within their existing statutory powers and responsibilities, and the Department positions the guidance as a resource to inform those local choices.
The Department for Transport's publication does not itself enact new national parking law; instead it provides instruction and clarification on the use of powers already available to local authorities to develop local schemes that support the national Blue Badge scheme and, by extension, disabled people who rely on accessible parking provision.
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