POPLA facing 4 month backlog. Still, it's better than 7 months.

This is a rewrite of my earlier blog, but using, uh, actual facts this time.

According to the POPLA annual report (published strangely after only 6 months) POPLA had received 4,051 appeals by the 31st March, and processed 1,969 of them. The first appeal was processed on 28th November, according to the same report, so we have had approximately 4 months worth of appeals processed by 31st March.

Ignoring the fact that POPLA took two weeks off in December, this is a rate of around 500 a month and leaves 2082 cases still to be adjudicated as of 1st April.

If POPLA continue to process cases at the same rate, this backlog would take around 4 months to clear, so a case submitted on 1st April should be adjudicated sometime around 1st August.

Still, it could be worse. The BPA Ltd assumed that POPLA would be taking around 17k cases a year, or 5700 every 4 months. Currently we are slightly down on that figure, by about 1650. This would have caused the backlog to increase by another 3 months.

Things may be getting worse. The current figures show that cases are now being submitted at the rate of 1000 per month. If this carries on at the same rate, then cases are coming in twice as fast as they can be processed. Every month that goes by will see another month added to the delay.

As more motorists learn that they get a better than 50% chance of having their case upheld by POPLA, we may even see the number of cases per month go up. As each case costs the BPA Ltd around £130, we might expect the BPA Ltd to take a good look at the POPLA report to see which Parking Companies are taking the mickey.


Things may also be getting better. The report hints that POPLA are getting more staff. We will have to wait for further figures to see how this affects the backlog.

Meanwhile, here are the figures to date:
       Cases Completed Won by Operator

Jan 25  1490       650             260
Feb  6  1551       843             328
Mar 31  4051      1969             911 



Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster