Motorists who commit minor parking offences will no longer have their vehicles towed after council executives gave the thumbs up to a new pilot scheme.

Parking restrictions on Wembley Stadium event days will also start three hours before an event starts and end three hours as part of the trial.

The new time scaled is being introduced following complaints from residents that the current time scale, from 8am until midnight, start too early.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of the council, said: “As more and more matches at the stadium are starting later in the day and most concerts take place in the evening anyway, it doesn’t make sense for the council to enforce strict parking controls during the whole day.”

Under the new scheme motorist who have their car towed away for committing a minor offence will instead receive a parking ticket.

Cars using a pay and display bay without a valid or expired ticket or in a resident’s bay without a permit, will no longer be towed away after an hour.

However if the driver is a persistent offender the car could be impounded.

In addition, cars parked on a double yellow line in a restricted street would be given 15-minutes grace period instead of having their vehicle instantly taken away.

This is extended to one hour to those parked on a single yellow line.

The council tows more than 4,000 vehicles every year since April 2010 – almost double the overall figure across the 18 boroughs.

Around 20 per cent of those vehicles are impounded on an event day.

Town hall bosses could potentially lose £320,000 from the new scheme, if the number of removals reduces to the London average of 2,600.

Cllr Butt continued: “We may lose out on a bit of revenue as a result of this decision, but Brent’s Labour-run council puts local people first. That’s why we reduced parking charges by over a third last year.”

The scheme will run from May 1 until the end of October.