of PCN appeals against Nottingham City Council are won

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

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 5,050 outcomes for appeals against Nottingham City Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 2,725 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is close to the 54.4% tribunal average.

5,050appeals with an outcome

2,725won, nothing to pay

2,202refused

What the tickets are worth. In its return to the government for 2024-25, Nottingham City Council reported £3.3m of income from parking fines. That is 11% 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

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

Penalty type	Outcomes	Not contested	Won
Parking	2,607	733	56.7%
Bus lane	2,443	720	51%

1,453 of those 2,725 wins were uncontested. In 53.3% of the appeals Nottingham 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 52.1% of appeals against Nottingham City Council, from 1,295 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 45.5%, from 1,135. Drivers are doing worse now than they were, by 6.6 points, so do not lean on the older figures.

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Year by year

Year	Allowed	Not contested	Refused	Won
2013/14	86	133	239	48%
2014/15	95	127	192	53%
2015/16	76	158	183	56%
2016/17	128	155	167	62%
2017/18	67	80	128	52%
2018/19	137	98	146	58%
2019/20	231	114	247	56%
2020/21	134	82	150	57%
2021/22	146	162	168	63%
2022/23	99	124	202	50%
2023/24	43	112	201	43%
2024/25	30	108	179	43%
All years	1,272	1,453	2,202	54%

Busiest year: 2019/20, with 611 appeals decided. A further 123 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 54%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Nottingham City Council ranks 106th 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
Dartford Borough Council	54.7% of 278
Isle of Wight Council	54.5% of 176
Birmingham City Council	54.4% of 19,200
Nottingham City Council (this page)	54% of 5,050
Dorset County Council	53.6% of 416
Worcester City Council	53.6% of 265
Caerphilly County Council	53.5% of 142

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