HomeAppeal success ratesThanet District Council

69.5%

of PCN appeals against Thanet District Council are won

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal recorded 302 outcomes for appeals against Thanet District Council from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and 210 of them ended with the driver paying nothing. That is 15.1 points better than the 54.4% tribunal average.

302appeals with an outcome
210won — nothing to pay
88refused

65 of those 210 wins were uncontested. In 31% of the appeals Thanet District Council lost, it put up no defence at the tribunal at all. That is a small share, so expect Thanet District Council to defend most cases and put your argument in front of an adjudicator rather than fold early. 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 65.3% of appeals against Thanet District Council, from 75 outcomes. In 2022/23 to 2024/25 it was 61.3%, from 31. The rate has held broadly steady across the decade.

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Year by year

YearAllowedNot contestedRefusedWon
2013/14 6 14 12 63%
2014/15 5 10 4 79%
2015/16 5 9 10 58%
2016/17 3 11 7 67%
2017/18 8 5 1 93%
2018/19 13 0 6 68%
2019/20 55 6 25 71%
2020/21 26 3 6 78%
2021/22 9 3 6 63%
2022/23 6 1 5 58%
2023/24 5 3 2 80%
2024/25 4 0 4 44%
All years14565 8869.5%

Busiest year: 2019/20, with 86 appeals decided. A further 4 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 69.5%, not lower. Among the 204 authorities in England outside London and in Wales with enough appeals to compare, Thanet District Council ranks 14th 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

How similar authorities compare

Authority Appeals won
Bassetlaw District Council 73.9% of 153
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council 72% of 243
Somerset County Council 69.6% of 819
Thanet District Council (this page) 69.5% of 302
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council 69.1% of 1,315
North West Leicestershire District Council 68.8% of 128
Newark & Sherwood District Council 68.5% of 124

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. Only parking penalties appear in its record. A tribunal outcome depends on the evidence in that particular case, so nothing here predicts yours.