of PCN appeals against Kirklees Metropolitan Council are won

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

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 1,093 outcomes for appeals against Kirklees Metropolitan Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 478 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 10.7 points below the 54.4% tribunal average.

1,093appeals with an outcome

478won, nothing to pay

594refused

What the tickets are worth. In its return to the government for 2024-25, Kirklees Metropolitan Council reported £665,000 of income from parking fines. That is 12% 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

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

Penalty type	Outcomes	Not contested	Won
Parking	752	143	45.7%
Bus lane	341	53	39.3%

196 of those 478 wins were uncontested. In 41% of the appeals Kirklees Metropolitan 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 45.1% of appeals against Kirklees Metropolitan Council, from 368 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 40.5%, from 131. The rate has held broadly steady across the decade.

Appealing a Kirklees Metropolitan 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 letter

Year by year

Year	Allowed	Not contested	Refused	Won
2013/14	52	26	88	47%
2014/15	26	24	66	43%
2015/16	20	18	46	44%
2016/17	43	41	120	41%
2017/18	25	9	55	38%
2018/19	18	8	64	28%
2019/20	22	13	30	52%
2020/21	29	5	30	51%
2021/22	31	15	24	65%
2022/23	8	12	28	39%
2023/24	4	11	23	38%
2024/25	4	14	20	45%
All years	282	196	594	43.7%

Busiest year: 2016/17, with 206 appeals decided. A further 21 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 43.7%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Kirklees Metropolitan Council ranks 174th 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
Arun District Council	44.5% of 119
Carmarthenshire County Council	44.3% of 244
Newcastle City Council	44.2% of 2,145
Kirklees Metropolitan Council (this page)	43.7% of 1,093
Aylesbury Vale District Council	43.7% of 126
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	43.4% of 645
Stevenage Borough Council	43% of 158

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