A new online portal to help make life easier for drivers appealing parking fines has gone live this week.
The new platform has been developed for the past 12 months by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) in partnership with Resolver, an online consumer complaints service, with the hope that it will empower drivers with a simpler, more effective way to fight unfairly awarded tickets.
Having to fork out for a parking fine is never a pleasant experience, and although costs can vary, in most cases you have 28 days to pay or challenge the ticket.
Before you use this system you’ll need to have challenged the fine with the local authority that issued the penalty and have it formally rejected. Just 0.5 percent of people who have been fined appeal to the TPT, despite a 50 percent success rate in having the fines overturned.
Brighton & Hove City Council is the first to use the system and TPT plans to roll it out to every region in the country (except London) by the end of 2016.
You will be able to appeal to the TFT via your smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC, replacing the previously slow process of submitting paper copies in the post.
The new system will also allow people to appeal fines for the Dartford Crossing and Durham congestion charge if believed to be unfair. You’ll also be able to upload videos and photographic evidence to help your argument.
As well as making it easier for drivers to appeal parking fines, it’s also believed it will save authorities a fair sum each year in admin costs.
Caroline Sheppard, chief adjudicator of the TPT, said: “Getting a parking ticket can be a frustrating experience, but our new portal makes the appeals process quicker, simpler and more transparent, putting paid to the old adage that ‘the wheels of justice grind slowly’.”
Last month a Freedom of Information request by the online parking marketplace YourParkingSpace.co.uk revealed that nearly 24 percent – more than one million – of all council-issued parking tickets are appealed, with an average of 31 percent being overturned.
However, the chances of success vary widely across the country from a high of 81 percent in Basingstoke and Deane successfully appealed to a low of fewer than 1 percent in East London.
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