Controversial Newcastle bus lane - thousands of fines to be refunded

Tyne Tees
Newcastle
John Dobson Street
Bus lane camera
Friday 14 October 2016 at 10:19am

The controversial bus lane on John Dobson Street, Newcastle.

Newcastle City Council is to refund 5,100 fines paid by people who drove on a controversial new bus lane in the city centre.

The announcement follows a ruling from the Traffic Penalty Tribunal that signs telling drivers that they were about to enter a bus lane, and would be liable for a fine if caught on cctv camera, were not lit up.

The refunds, totalling £117,500, apply only to people who were caught driving at night along the bus lane on John Dobson Street during a two month period earlier this year.

“Adjudicators’ decisions relate only to the case in which they are made and do not apply to other cases, which have their own individual circumstances. We are currently reviewing all adjudicators’ decisions to see if we need to take any further action. During this review we found that we issued 5,100 penalty charge notices during hours of darkness between February 23 and April 22 when the bus gate signs were not lit up. This happened because we were working to new Department for Transport regulations, which do not require lighting but which came into force later than we had anticipated. We know which penalty charge notices are affected by this and we will contact all drivers concerned to make a refund so there is no need for them to contact us. We are sorry for this and will seek to ensure that it does not happen again.”

Tens of thousands of fines have been issued since the activation of the new bus lane camera.

The new restrictions on John Dobson Street have raised the council hundreds of thousands of pounds, which it said would be reinvested into transport infrastructure.