HomeAppeal success ratesCity of Bradford Metropolitan District Council

45.3%

of PCN appeals against City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council are won

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 8,020 outcomes for appeals against City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 3,636 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 9.1 points below the 54.4% tribunal average.

8,020appeals with an outcome
3,636won — nothing to pay
3,894refused

What the appeals were about

City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council enforces more than one kind of penalty, and drivers do not fare the same on each.

Penalty typeOutcomesNot contestedWon
Clean air zone 3,340 490 30.4%
Parking 2,571 788 55.9%
Bus lane 2,067 697 56.5%
Littering from a vehicle 42 7 40.5%

1,982 of those 3,636 wins were uncontested. In 54.5% of the appeals City of Bradford Metropolitan District 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 49.4% of appeals against City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, from 1,853 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 35%, from 4,088. Drivers are doing worse now than they were, by 14.4 points, so do not lean on the older figures.

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Year by year

YearAllowedNot contestedRefusedWon
2013/14 143 142 305 48%
2014/15 161 193 331 52%
2015/16 132 145 264 48%
2016/17 116 192 242 55%
2017/18 103 124 116 64%
2018/19 101 126 107 66%
2019/20 150 109 135 64%
2020/21 65 87 60 67%
2021/22 42 74 56 62%
2022/23 44 75 70 62%
2023/24 348 210 1,136 28%
2024/25 249 505 1,072 40%
All years1,6541,982 3,89445.3%

Busiest year: 2023/24, with 2,006 appeals decided. A further 490 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 45.3%, not lower. Among the 204 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council ranks 166th 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

How similar authorities compare

Authority Appeals won
Chichester District Council 45.7% of 361
Pembrokeshire County Council 45.7% of 184
Cardiff County Council 45.6% of 3,721
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (this page) 45.3% of 8,020
Winchester City Council 45.2% of 168
Denbighshire County Council 45.2% of 166
Warrington Borough Council 44.7% of 709

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 City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council enforces is counted above. A tribunal outcome depends on the evidence in that particular case, so nothing here predicts yours.