of PCN appeals against Manchester City Council are won

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

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 13,442 outcomes for appeals against Manchester City Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 9,178 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 13.9 points better than the 54.4% tribunal average.

13,442appeals with an outcome

9,178won — nothing to pay

3,997refused

What the tickets are worth. In its return to the government for 2024-25, Manchester City Council reported £14.8m of income from parking fines. That is 37% 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

Manchester 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	6,887	2,048	68.2%
Parking	6,490	2,389	68.5%
Moving traffic	65	32	58.5%

4,469 of those 9,178 wins were uncontested. In 48.7% of the appeals Manchester City 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 65.8% of appeals against Manchester City Council, from 3,328 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 59.6%, from 2,364. Drivers are doing worse now than they were, by 6.2 points, so do not lean on the older figures.

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Year by year

Year	Allowed	Not contested	Refused	Won
2013/14	582	252	433	66%
2014/15	550	263	384	68%
2015/16	354	188	306	63%
2016/17	320	176	358	58%
2017/18	344	394	330	66%
2018/19	1,139	961	383	83%
2019/20	540	602	503	67%
2020/21	274	352	215	71%
2021/22	246	232	170	72%
2022/23	153	296	251	63%
2023/24	86	369	262	62%
2024/25	121	384	402	55%
All years	4,709	4,469	3,997	68.3%

Busiest year: 2018/19, with 2,522 appeals decided. A further 267 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 68.3%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Manchester City Council ranks 19th 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
North West Leicestershire District Council	68.8% of 128
Newark & Sherwood District Council	68.5% of 124
Reigate & Banstead Borough Council	68.5% of 340
Manchester City Council (this page)	68.3% of 13,442
Trafford Borough Council	68.2% of 1,012
City and County of Swansea Council	67.6% of 1,927
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council	67.1% of 1,283

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