of PCN appeals against Coventry City Council are won

Name: Penalty charge appeal outcomes for Coventry City Council, 2013/14 to 2024/25
Creator: Traffic Penalty Tribunal

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 3,093 outcomes for appeals against Coventry City Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 2,392 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 22.9 points better than the 54.4% tribunal average.

3,093appeals with an outcome

2,392won, nothing to pay

633refused

Over the same period Coventry City Council told the tribunal it issued 1,008,567 penalty charge notices. Only 3,093 of them ever reached an adjudicator, roughly one in 326. Almost everyone pays, which is worth knowing before you assume a ticket must be fair because so few people fight it.

What the appeals were about

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

Penalty type	Outcomes	Not contested	Won
Bus lane	1,702	1,004	80.2%
Parking	1,389	649	73.8%
Moving traffic	2	2	2 of 2

1,655 of those 2,392 wins were uncontested. In 69.2% of the appeals Coventry City Council lost, it put up no defence at the tribunal at all. That is the bulk of its losses, which tells you something plain: on most of the tickets that reach an adjudicator, the council would rather drop the case than argue it. 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 80.9% of appeals against Coventry City Council, from 946 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 64.4%, from 438. Drivers are doing worse now than they were, by 16.5 points, so do not lean on the older figures.

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Year by year

Year	Allowed	Not contested	Refused	Won
2013/14	62	128	37	84%
2014/15	68	192	65	80%
2015/16	91	224	78	80%
2016/17	103	187	86	77%
2017/18	89	221	55	83%
2018/19	152	265	67	83%
2019/20	97	125	67	72%
2020/21	16	60	18	77%
2021/22	11	19	17	64%
2022/23	28	89	52	66%
2023/24	12	60	46	61%
2024/25	8	85	45	65%
All years	737	1,655	633	77.3%

Busiest year: 2018/19, with 500 appeals decided. A further 68 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 77.3%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Coventry City Council ranks 6th 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
Milton Keynes Council	82.9% of 889
Mersey Gateway (Merseyflow)	82.2% of 25,024
Gloucester City Council	79.7% of 143
Coventry City Council (this page)	77.3% of 3,093
Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council	76.1% of 402
City of Wolverhampton Council	75.1% of 1,329
Gwynedd Council	74.5% of 243

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