At a glance
- A council parking PCN is £70 (or £50 for lesser contraventions), roughly halved if you pay within 14 days.
- Paying the ticket ends the matter. You cannot pay and appeal. Decide which you're doing first.
- A private "Parking Charge Notice" from a car-park company is a different thing entirely, with a different appeals route.
- Genuine grounds to challenge a council PCN go: informal challenge → formal representation → independent tribunal.
Should you pay or appeal?
Answer a couple of questions to see your best next step, what it will cost, and where to do it.
Three tickets, three rulebooks
Before you do anything, read who issued the notice.
| Type | Issued by | Typical cost | Appeal to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Council PCN (parking, bus lane, moving traffic) | Birmingham City Council | £50 or £70 (half if paid in 14 days) | Council, then Traffic Penalty Tribunal |
| Clean Air Zone penalty | Birmingham City Council | £120 (£60 in 14 days) | Council, then Traffic Penalty Tribunal |
| Private parking charge | A private company | Set by the operator | POPLA or the IAS, not the council |
The private one trips people up most. If a retail park or private car park issues it, the council has no involvement and says plainly that it cannot advise on those, as they run under contract law and you appeal through the operator's own scheme. The Clean Air Zone penalty is covered in detail in our Clean Air Zone guide. The rest of this page is about the council PCN.
What a council PCN costs
Birmingham sets two levels. More serious contraventions (parking on a double yellow, in a disabled bay, or in a bus lane) carry a £70 charge, reduced to £35 if you pay within 14 days. Lesser ones, such as overstaying in a paid bay, are £50, reduced to £25 in the same window. Ignore it and after 28 days the council can issue a Charge Certificate that raises the penalty by half again, so the cheapest mistake is doing nothing.
How to appeal: the three stages
You only have grounds if something was genuinely wrong: the signs or markings were unclear, you'd actually paid, the car had been sold, the loading was permitted, and so on. "I was only five minutes" is not a ground. If you do have a real case, the process is fixed and worth following carefully.
- Informal challenge. If the ticket was put on your car, challenge it online before the council issues a formal Notice to Owner. Set out your grounds and attach evidence: photos of the signs, your payment receipt, the V5C. Do this within 28 days.
- Formal representation. If the informal challenge fails or a Notice to Owner has already been posted, you make formal representations to the council. If they reject them, they must send you a Notice of Rejection explaining why and telling you how to appeal further.
- Independent tribunal. Within 28 days of that rejection, you can take it to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, where an independent adjudicator, not the council, decides. It's free, and you can submit it online. The same tribunal hears Clean Air Zone appeals.
One decision to make early
You cannot pay a PCN and then appeal it; settling the charge closes the case. The reduced-rate window (14 days) also runs while you're challenging, so there's a real tension: hold out for an appeal and you risk losing the discount if you lose. Weigh how strong your evidence is against the size of the charge before you commit either way.