PCN Appeals - The complete parking ticket appeal service for commercial vehicles

Facts and Figures

The Road Traffic Act (1991) decriminalised parking enforcement. This meant local authorities could enforce parking regulations themselves, or use private contractors to do so on their behalf. Decriminalised parking commenced in London in 1994, with Wandsworth Council being the first to manage their own parking enforcement.

Local authorities now have sole responsibility for collecting and spending revenues from parking fines. No wonder the number of parking tickets issued has increased dramatically every year since authorities were in control of this revenue.

UK Parking ticket revenue growth:

The profit margin on parking enforcement has risen to 71% over the past 7 years.

Upwards of 30,000 penalty charge notices (PCNs) are expected to be issued each day in 2006.

Vans and lorries receive a disproportionate number of PCNs compared to private cars – 75% more.

Papers released under the Freedom of Information act to The Sunday Times reveal that one parking attendant based in Westminster issued 1,444 tickets in October — an average of nearly 70 tickets each day.

Income received through all Westminster council’s parking operations was £100 million in 2004-05.

Almost 6 million PCNs were issued in London in the year 2004-05, resulting in estimated revenue of £475 million. (See table at foot of this page for figures for each London Borough.)

Outside of London, the top ten most heavily ticketed areas are:

Many councils use private contractors to manage parking enforcement, for example NCP and APCOA. Are these private companies incentivised to “become more effective” at parking enforcement? This is one of many (unanswered) questions put to authorities regarding their contracts with private parking companies.

There have been numerous media articles on tactics used by parking contractors to encourage “better performance” by parking attendants. Bad press forced a move away from direct incentives – the more tickets issued directly increased monthly pay packets – to slightly more subtle strategies, such as Argos points given for “overall performance” and regular “coaching” for under-performing parking attendants.