of PCN appeals against Sheffield City Council are won

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

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 6,447 outcomes for appeals against Sheffield City Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 3,799 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 4.5 points better than the 54.4% tribunal average.

6,447appeals with an outcome

3,799won, nothing to pay

2,504refused

Over the same period Sheffield City Council told the tribunal it issued 1,402,032 penalty charge notices. Only 6,447 of them ever reached an adjudicator, roughly one in 217. Almost everyone pays, which is worth knowing before you assume a ticket must be fair because so few people fight it.

What the tickets are worth. In its return to the government for 2024-25, Sheffield City Council reported £1.6m of income from parking fines. That is 17% 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

Sheffield 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	3,181	1,391	61.6%
Parking	2,754	841	59.9%
Clean air zone	512	116	36.5%

See our full guide to Clean Air Zone charges for the real daily rate, why the penalty only arrives after 6 days, and the compliance-based grounds that actually work on appeal.

2,348 of those 3,799 wins were uncontested. In 61.8% of the appeals Sheffield 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 61.5% of appeals against Sheffield City Council, from 2,208 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 47.8%, from 1,752. Drivers are doing worse now than they were, by 13.7 points, so do not lean on the older figures.

Appealing a Sheffield City 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	191	283	285	62%
2014/15	193	236	309	58%
2015/16	113	343	250	64%
2016/17	148	191	264	56%
2017/18	134	115	153	61%
2018/19	138	117	147	62%
2019/20	96	130	101	68%
2020/21	51	118	32	80%
2021/22	113	252	125	71%
2022/23	84	153	176	55%
2023/24	76	189	241	51%
2024/25	114	221	421	42%
All years	1,451	2,348	2,504	58.9%

Busiest year: 2024/25, with 802 appeals decided. A further 144 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 58.9%, not lower. Among the 203 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Sheffield City Council ranks 78th 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
Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council	59.6% of 433
North Devon District Council	59.5% of 222
East Lindsey District Council	59.2% of 103
Sheffield City Council (this page)	58.9% of 6,447
Northamptonshire County Council	58.8% of 833
North East Lincolnshire Council	58.7% of 334
Bath & North East Somerset Council	58.6% of 1,619

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