Home › Appeal success rates › Buckinghamshire Council
of PCN appeals against Buckinghamshire Council are won
The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 1,195 outcomes for appeals against Buckinghamshire Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 671 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is close to the 54.4% tribunal average.
Over the same period Buckinghamshire Council told the tribunal it issued 399,597 penalty charge notices. Only 1,195 of them ever reached an adjudicator, roughly one in 334. Almost everyone pays, which is worth knowing before you assume a ticket must be fair because so few people fight it.
What the tickets are worth. In its return to the government for 2024-25, Buckinghamshire Council reported £140,000 of income from parking fines. That is 1% of everything it earned from parking, so most of its parking money comes from people paying to park rather than from penalties. Any surplus is not profit in the ordinary sense: on-street surpluses have to be spent on transport under section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.
What the appeals were about
Buckinghamshire Council enforces more than one kind of penalty, and drivers do not fare the same on each.
| Penalty type | Outcomes | Not contested | Won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parking | 1,124 | 229 | 56.3% |
| Moving traffic | 71 | 14 | 53.5% |
243 of those 671 wins were uncontested. In 36.2% of the appeals Buckinghamshire Council lost, it put up no defence at the tribunal at all. Roughly a third to a half of its losses never got argued, so a properly written appeal has a real chance of being conceded before anyone reads the evidence. Those tickets were not close calls. The authority had already given up on them, and the appeal was the only thing standing between the driver and a cancelled charge.
Is it getting easier or harder?
In 2013/14 to 2015/16, drivers won 54.5% of appeals against Buckinghamshire Council, from 376 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 52.5%, from 244. The rate has held broadly steady across the decade.
Appealing a Buckinghamshire Council ticket?
Build a properly worded appeal letter in a couple of minutes. Free, no account, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Build my appeal letterYear by year
| Year | Allowed | Not contested | Refused | Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013/14 | 69 | 18 | 56 | 60% |
| 2014/15 | 34 | 23 | 67 | 46% |
| 2015/16 | 32 | 29 | 44 | 57% |
| 2016/17 | 31 | 23 | 50 | 52% |
| 2017/18 | 38 | 15 | 49 | 51% |
| 2018/19 | 37 | 17 | 48 | 53% |
| 2019/20 | 30 | 8 | 43 | 46% |
| 2020/21 | 33 | 25 | 21 | 73% |
| 2021/22 | 49 | 32 | 23 | 78% |
| 2022/23 | 19 | 16 | 11 | 71% |
| 2023/24 | 24 | 14 | 54 | 41% |
| 2024/25 | 32 | 23 | 39 | 54% |
| All years | 428 | 243 | 505 | 56.2% |
Busiest year: 2013/14, with 145 appeals decided. A further 19 appeals were closed by consent order across the period, which the tribunal counts separately because it can mean the driver agreeing to pay the original charge.
What this does and does not tell you
These are appeals that reached an independent adjudicator, which is the last stage. They leave out every ticket cancelled earlier, when you first challenge it or make formal representations, and that is where most successful challenges actually end. So your real chance of getting a ticket cancelled somewhere in the process is higher than 56.2%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Buckinghamshire Council ranks 92nd for how often drivers win.
Two details worth knowing before you read too much into the number. The refused column includes appeals made after the deadline and appeals the driver withdrew, so it is not purely a record of arguments that lost on the evidence. And a small number of appeals each year finish with no outcome recorded against any of these categories, so the totals here are of appeals that reached a recorded outcome rather than of every appeal lodged.
Before you write
- Find your contravention code. Every PCN carries a two digit code that says exactly what they claim you did, and what they have to prove. Look yours up.
- Check the deadline. Discounts and rights both expire. Work out your dates.
- Know how appeals work outside London. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal route, step by step.
- Do not just ignore it. What actually happens if you do.
How similar authorities compare
| Authority | Appeals won |
|---|---|
| Salford City Council | 56.7% of 1,697 |
| Hertsmere Borough Council | 56.2% of 251 |
| Brighton & Hove City Council | 56.2% of 7,115 |
| Buckinghamshire Council (this page) | 56.2% of 1,195 |
| Bury Metropolitan Borough Council | 56.1% of 1,213 |
| Havant Borough Council | 56% of 200 |
| Canterbury City Council | 55.9% of 220 |
Every authority we hold figures for, with sources →
Source: Traffic Penalty Tribunal, appeals data by authority, covering 2013/14 to 2024/25. The tribunal decides appeals for England outside London and for Wales, across parking, bus lane, moving traffic, clean air zone, river crossing and littering penalties. Every type Buckinghamshire Council enforces is counted above. A tribunal outcome depends on the evidence in that particular case, so nothing here predicts yours.