Parking fines worth appealing, says which.co.uk

Some local councils are rejecting far too many challenges to parking fines, says which.co.uk (http://www.which.co.uk/cars )

[ClickPress, Thu Feb 21 2008] The consumer charity says that the number of parking fines overturned at appeal stage, often uncontested by the council, means it is worth persevering if the initial challenge is rejected*.

When Liz Edwards, Head of News at which.co.uk (http://www.which.co.uk/news ), challenged an unfair ticket, Lambeth Council rejected her challenge twice but she later won uncontested at appeal.

Bizarrely, Lambeth also sent Edwards an unjustified demand for £150 and threatened her with bailiffs; she later discovered that in 2007, Lambeth Council sent 8,000 of these demands in error**.

Appeal Now, a campaign group which helps people challenge parking fines, says that in half the appeals won by drivers the council failed to offer evidence, which suggests the tickets should already have been cancelled.

In 2005, more than 60 per cent of appeals in the London boroughs of Hackney, Hillingdon and Southwark were uncontested***. In contrast, Stockport Council, which says it tries to resolve challenges in-house, gave 23,000 tickets yet had no formal appeals.

Neil Fowler, Editor, Which? magazine, says:
“Some councils seem all too ready to give parking fines, but far more reluctant when it comes to cancelling the ones that aren’t justified – perhaps with one eye on their income.

“Many motorists will simply give in and pay up, but if you think a parking ticket is unjustified it’s well worth challenging it and, if the challenge is rejected, appealing the decision.”


* Total appeals in England & Wales (excluding London) in 2005: 9,449
Number of appeals won by drivers: 5,341 (57 per cent)
Appeals that were won uncontested: 2,749

** Lambeth Council admitted to Which? that in 2007 it sent 8,000 wrong demands with the threat of bailiffs as a result of an IT ‘glitch’. Lambeth Council told Which? that it was refunding the 212 people who had paid, and that it had fixed the problem.

*** About 8 million parking tickets were issued in 2005. The number of parking appeals contested varied hugely at different councils. In the latest Scottish figures, for 2006-07, seven in ten people won appeals, almost 80 per cent of which were uncontested.

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