Swansea Bay News have teamed up with Claims.co.uk to analyse Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) data from 2020 to 2021, to find which areas have been the hardest hit with motoring fines. We also looked at which areas residents have been most successful at appealing these notices.
An amazing 94% of drivers who appealed PCN’s issued in Carmarthenshire won their case according to the data. However, out of the 10,162 tickets issued, just 16 were appealed – with 15 of those being successful.
Drivers in Swansea were issued with almost 5 times the number of parking tickets than it’s neighbouring authorities, with 49,324 tickets issued during the period studied. There were 101 appeals against those tickets, which had a 85% success rate, with 86 successful appeals.
Neath Port Talbot drivers were issued with 10,004 PCN’s with 85% of appeals against those tickets successful (86 out of 101).
Drivers in Pembrokeshire were the least likely to appeal their parking charge notice, with just 4 appeals lodged against the 10,471 tickets issued. With just 2 appeals successful, this works out at a 50% success rate.
Manchester saw the most penalty charge notices issued of any area in the UK, with 546,270 fines issued overall. Considering the population of the area that the City of Manchester covers is only 549,853, that’s almost one penalty charge notice for every person. Of those fines, only 660 were appealed, with just 478 being successfully overturned.
Close behind in second place is Brighton and Hove, which saw fines issued at a rate of 98,583 per 100,000 people – 893.62% higher than the national average of 9,922 per 100,000 people. Brighton and Hove saw a total of 286,280 PCNs issued throughout the timeframe, with only 878 being appealed and 631 being successful.
A spokesperson for Claims.co.uk commented on the findings, saying: “The findings from the study on Penalty Charge Notices in the UK reveal a diverse picture across regions. There are notable differences in the frequency of these notices, with some areas demonstrating higher incidence than others.”
“Moreover, the data suggests a noteworthy trend where more rural locations tend to register comparatively lower numbers, potentially due to the lack of need for parking enforcement infrastructure”.
