POPLA appeal success rates by operator — the 2025 league table

Read the numbers as POPLA counts them. These are decided appeals only. Appeals an operator chooses not to contest — 34,502 last year — end in the driver's favour without a ruling and are not in these columns, so drivers' overall position is better than any row suggests. A low percentage says the operator contests hard and wins at adjudication; it says nothing about whether your grounds are good. How decided and not-contested fit together →

The table, ranked for the driver

Sorted by the share of decided appeals allowed. Operators with fewer than 25 decided appeals are listed separately below — a percentage of a handful of cases is noise.

Every row above, including the 100% at the top and the 6.3% at the bottom, is counted from POPLA Annual Report 2025 — Appendix (Parking on Private Land Appeals, 30/04/2026) — checked 20/08/2026.

POPLA allowed 21.5% of the 67,680 appeals it decided in the year to 30 September 2025. Writing the appeal yourself costs nothing: the grounds are set out on how to appeal and there is a free template letter to start from. If you would rather answer eight questions than face a blank page, the free builder puts your own facts into the wording an assessor reads, on screen and as a download, at no charge.

Fewer than 25 decided appeals

Who got better, who got worse — three years of POPLA reports

Counted from the per-operator appendices of POPLA Annual Report 2025 — Appendix (Parking on Private Land Appeals, 30/04/2026) — checked 20/08/2026 and the two annual reports before it. Each operator's share of decided appeals allowed, in POPLA's 2023 report against its 2025 report. Only operators with at least 100 decided appeals in both years are shown: a swing computed off a handful of cases is noise, not a trend. The all-operator average over the same span went 2023: 22.4% · 2024: 20.4% · 2025: 21.5%.

Reading it: a fall means a smaller share of appeals that reached an adjudicator were allowed. That can mean the operator is contesting more of the appeals it would once have dropped, or that it is issuing better-evidenced charges. The table records the movement; it does not claim the cause.

What this table can and cannot tell you

• It can tell you how appeals against your operator were actually decided last year, from POPLA's own record — before you decide whether to pay or fight. Every operator name links to its route, deadlines and grounds.
• It cannot predict your case. The single biggest factor is your facts and your grounds, not the operator's average.
• The IAS publishes no equivalent. 110 of the 217 operators we map route to the Independent Appeals Service, which has published no allowed rate since 2021/22. If your operator is IAS-routed, this asymmetry is worth knowing in itself.

Method, in two sentences

Counts are taken from the "Appeals decided by operator" table of the POPLA Annual Report 2025 Appendix (period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025), with an operator's regional and venue reporting lines aggregated. The parse is validated by arithmetic: the columns sum to the report's own printed totals — 14,578 allowed, 53,102 refused, 67,680 decided — exactly.

Every operator POPLA reported on is in the table above, including 11 rows totalling 1,964 decided appeals for operators this site holds no page for — they are unlinked rows here, and they are inside the 67,680 total. The per-operator "share of every POPLA decision" figure on an operator page divides by that same 67,680, so the label and the denominator describe one population.

The three-year columns repeat that for the 2023 and 2024 appendices, each checked against its own report's printed grand total before it is used: 2023 — 14,840 allowed of 66,341 decided; 2024 — 13,216 allowed of 64,808 decided; 2025 — 14,578 allowed of 67,680 decided. An operator shows "—" where POPLA listed it in only one of the three reports.

For journalists and researchers

The full table is downloadable as CSV and as JSON, free to use with attribution and a link. The method is two sentences (above) and every parse is validated against the report's own printed totals — the numbers are reproducible from the public PDF. Questions, corrections, or the underlying parse: hello@getaxionlabs.com — a person answers, usually same day.

The case the operator at the top of this table won

ParkingEye's charge is the one the Supreme Court upheld in 2015, and its name is cited in rejection letters against operators that were not party to it. What ParkingEye v Beavis decided, and the grounds it never touched → · Charges issued on hospital sites are a separate question → · All 8 guides →

Where these numbers come from

• Every row in every table on this page, the 67,680 total and the 21.5% average: POPLA Annual Report 2025 — Appendix (Parking on Private Land Appeals, 30/04/2026) — checked 20/08/2026. Period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025.
• 28 days to lodge a POPLA appeal from the rejection code: POPLA's own FAQ — popla.co.uk/faqs, checked 24/08/2026.
• The 14-day discount window and the 14-day hold on the reduced rate after a rejection: The private parking sector single Code of Practice, Version 1.1 (British Parking Association and International Parking Community, 17/02/2025) — checked 20/08/2026 — clauses 8.2.2 and 8.1.2(e). Code of Practice v1.1 §8.1.2(e): that if the recipient appeals within 28 days of receiving the parking charge, the right to pay at the rate applicable when the appeal was made must stand for a further 14 days
• The IAS publishes no equivalent per-operator rate: The Independent Appeals Service (IAS) Annual Report 2024–2025 (Independent Appeals Service, covering 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025) — checked 20/08/2026 — we fetched and read it rather than quoting anyone's summary of it.

If you would rather not write the letter yourself

Everything above this line is free and stays free — the deadlines, the odds, the grounds, the template letter. The paid builder only writes the letter for you. If it does not fit your notice, reply to the receipt and a person — me — will either fix it or refund you. Expect a reply within a few days.

Short guides, one screen each, for the operators people search for most, with the odds from POPLA's own report, your two dates and the three grounds that win: Euro Car Parks, ParkingEye, UKPC, Smart Parking, APCOA, NCP, MET Parking, Horizon Parking.

Not sure yet? Check whether you'll lose your discount first — free

Build my appeal letter, free

Answer 8 questions about your notice and get a ready-to-send appeal letter in minutes. It costs nothing, and you can download it.

The one thing on this site you can pay for is one operator’s full POPLA record, £20 once: three years of that company’s appendix rows, the grounds and the clause of its own rulebook that answers each one, its own published route and your clock. See what is in it, free. You never need it to appeal.

Sources named above: ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (The National Archives)