Why you got one
Both crossings are “free flow”: there is no barrier and no way to pay on the spot. A camera reads your plate as you cross, and you pay afterwards online, by app or by phone. Miss that window and a penalty charge notice follows automatically, registered keeper first, no exceptions for not realising a charge applied.
Dart Charge (Dartford Crossing, A282/M25)
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pay by | Midnight the day after you cross. There is no same-day cutoff, you get the rest of that day plus the whole of the next one. |
| Miss it | A Penalty Charge Notice for £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days of the PCN, rising to £105 if still unpaid after 28 days. |
Source: gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge. PCNs are issued under the authority of the Secretary of State for Transport, with National Highways as the scheme’s highway authority.
Mersey Gateway and the Silver Jubilee Bridge (Merseyflow)
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pay by | Midnight the day after you cross, the same window as Dart Charge. |
| Miss it | A Penalty Charge Notice for £50 (raised from £40 on 1 April 2025), reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days, rising to £75 if unpaid or unchallenged after 28 days. |
| Still ignored | After 42 days it becomes a county court civil debt plus an £11 court fee. After 63 days it moves to debt enforcement. |
Source: merseyflow.co.uk, run by Halton Borough Council. Its escalation to a county court debt is faster and more explicit than Dart Charge’s, so acting inside the 28 days matters even more here.
The real appeal figures
Both schemes report every decision to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. Over the twelve years of published records:
| Scheme | Decisions | Driver won | Of those wins, no defence at all |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dart Charge | 101,024 | 44.7% | 91.6% |
| Mersey Gateway | 25,024 | 82.2% | 79.9% |
Mersey Gateway drivers win more than four times out of five, and Dart Charge drivers win nearly half the time, the great majority of both because the scheme itself never puts up a defence once it reaches the tribunal. That is not a reason to skip the first step, representations to the scheme rarely get this far, but it is a reason not to give up if yours is rejected.
Source: Traffic Penalty Tribunal appeals data, the same dataset behind every authority page on this site. “Won” means allowed or not contested; cases closed by consent between the parties, which the tribunal notes can mean paying the original charge, are not counted as a win.
Official grounds of appeal
Both schemes publish the same short list of grounds that a Traffic Penalty Tribunal adjudicator will actually decide on:
- Not the registered keeper at the time, or the vehicle was sold or bought around that date
- A long term lease that had already transferred keepership to someone else
- Stolen, or used without your consent
- Already paid on time, in full
- The amount exceeds the legal maximum, £70 for Dart Charge, £50 for Mersey Gateway
- A procedural failure by the scheme itself, for example the PCN was missing required information, or it never responded to your original challenge
There is also a discretionary “compelling reason” category, but it is explicitly non-binding, an adjudicator can only ask the scheme to reconsider, not force it to cancel the charge.
Be honest with yourself about “the app didn’t work.” A genuine payment that failed due to a system error is not a separate named ground on either scheme’s own appeal page. It only succeeds under “already paid” if the payment actually went through before the deadline, screenshots and bank statements help, or otherwise falls into the non-binding “compelling reason” bucket with no guaranteed result. Neither scheme promises to cancel a charge for this reason, so do not treat it as a safe bet.
How to appeal, step by step
- Challenge the scheme directly, Dart Charge or Merseyflow, within 28 days of the PCN. This is free and does not require a solicitor.
- Wait for their decision. If it is rejected, you get a formal Notice of Rejection.
- Appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal within 28 days of that rejection, free, online at tpt.gov.uk, decided by an independent adjudicator with at least five years’ legal experience. Their decision is binding on the scheme.
Our free appeal letter tool is built for council and private parking tickets, and its grounds do not match a toll crossing dispute, so we have not tried to force this into it. Use the scheme’s own challenge form for step 1, it is short and asks for exactly the details above.