PEOPLE power has been credited with helping motorists in Oxfordshire successfully challenge more than 3,000 parking tickets issued in the past year.

One in 12 appeals are now successful and a drivers’ group said motorists were becoming more aware of their rights.

Almost one in three appeals made to Oxfordshire County Council over on-street parking tickets is now successful, compared to only about one in five three years ago.

One Cumnor resident said people were fed up being handed fines for parking offences.

North Oxford Property Services director Robin Swailes has successfully appealed 11 tickets in the past four months, after parking spaces were removed and replaced with double-yellow lines opposite his business in Walton Street. He argued it had not been made clear where vehicles were able to park and whether or not he could still use parking bays that had yellow lines painted over them.


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As a result the county council quashed the tickets, which had been issued to both his staff and visitors.

He said: “People have definitely become more aware of their rights.

“People are not just going to lie down and take it any more.

“The internet helps to tell people how they can tackle it and the more it is in the papers and people read about it and it is in the public conscious then the more likely people are to appeal.

“The situation is a mess. My staff and I want to keep Oxford alive and part of that is having a place to park for people who need to visit our business.”

Earlier this month, parking bays in Broad Street were repainted by the county council after a parking ticket issued there was cancelled because the road markings did not meet regulations.

The law stated the markings should have been dotted lines, not solid lines, and the county council was forced to repaint them at a cost of £975.

AA spokesman Luke Bosdet said that people were now more willing to appeal than in previous years.

He said: “The media has fed info about the successful chances of an appeal back to people.

“That acts as an encouragement to people, rather than what a lot of British people do, which is complain a bit and pay up and put it down to experience.

“Local authorities have come to sort of depend on fines that they can get from parking tickets.

“But the statistics that come from the ombudsman suggest that if you think you have a chance of appealing against a parking ticket go for it.”

It comes as figures obtained by the Oxford Mail showed 3,161 tickets out of 38,288 issued in the county were successfully appealed in 2013/14.

Tickets are issued for either £70 or £50 fines reduced to £35 and £25 respectively if paid within 14 days.

That could mean the council missed out on up to £221,000.

Oxfordshire County Council said it brought in a total of £1.34 million through parking fines in 2013/14.

Jo Davies from Great Rollright, near Chipping Norton, successfully appealed a ticket she got in Banbury in 2011.

Although her ticket was issued by Cherwell District Council, she agreed people had become more aware of their rights.

The 50-year-old said: “It can be confusing, you do not always know where you have to pay and where you do not.

“If the rules are changed you just hope councils can be transparent about it.

“To me it is a total injustice.

“At the time I was not very away of my rights to appeal and I think more people need to be made aware.

“I think a lot more people have become aware in recent years.”

The number of appeals to Oxfordshire County Council in 2013/14 was 9,414.

This was a slight drop on 10,495 appeals the previous year, but well up on both 2011/12 and 2010/11 when about 6,000 challenges were made each year.

County council spokesman Dominic Llewellyn-Jones said this rise was the main reason more appeals were succeeding.

He said: “The increase in the number of cancelled penalty charge notices is being primarily driven by more drivers challenging the notice.

“There have been no changes in practices and procedures by the council in relation to issuing penalty charge notices or to the appeals process.”

More than one in three of all appeals succeeded in 2013/14, compared to almost one in five in 2012/13.

Grounds for appeal

  • You did not own the vehicle when you were given the ticket.
  • The vehicle was stolen when the ticket was issued.
  • You didn’t break the rules, for example your car was broken down or you were legally loading or unloading.
  • The road markings did not clearly show you could not park there.
  • The council sent you a ticket by post because it thinks someone prevented the parking warden putting it on your car but you do not believe this to be the case.
  • You have been fined more than you should have been, for example the higher rather than lower category.
  • The ticket wasn’t issued in the correct way.
  • You were sent a prompt to pay but had already paid.

 The figures

Percentage of tickets successfully appealed against Oxfordshire County Council 
2013/14: 8.3 per cent
Number of tickets issued: 38,288
Number of successful appeals: 3,161
2012/13: 4.9 per cent
Number of tickets issued: 39,341
Number of successful appeals: 1,952
2011/12: 3.1 per cent
Number of tickets issued: 41,046
Number of successful appeals: 1,286
2010/11: 3.2 per cent
Number of tickets issued: 38,389
Number of successful appeals: 1,235
2009/10: 3.5 per cent 
Number of tickets issued: 37,912
Number of successful appeals: 1,319