Medical emergencies, forgotten blue badges and misplaced parking tickets have all led to successful appeals against parking fines in North Herts, it has been revealed.

The leader of North Herts Council, Cllr Daniel Allen, explained why more than half of appeals against penalty charge notices (PCNs) in the district have been successful.

He said the council had issued 15,623 PCNs in 2024, and that 1,948 of these – 12.5 per cent of the total – had been successfully appealed.

Cllr Allen said: "Of those appeals, 39 were allowed because of a medical emergency occurring, 315 were blue badge holders who had forgotten to display or had covered up their valid […] badges, 451 had valid parking tickets produced afterwards where the ticket had flown off the dashboard.

"1,143 of these reasons were broken down cars, pay-by-phone errors, entering the wrong registration number […] all of these appeals are reasonable reasons, which demonstrate that we believe in a fairer, greener North Herts."

His answer came at a full council meeting last week (Thursday, January 23) in response to questions from Cllr Ralph Muncer about how many fines had been issued and how many had been successfully appealed.

In 2024, North Herts Council received 3,602 appeals against parking fines, and 1,654 of these were unsuccessful. Around 54 per cent of appeals were successful – down from 60 per cent in 2023.