The bus gate that earns £1.5 million

Tuesday 15th August 2023

The UK’s highest earning bus gate reportedly responsible for a third of all the country’s bus lane fines brought in over £1.5 million in revenue for Brighton & Hove City Council last year.

Around 38,500 fines were issued to motorists for violating the regulations working out at just over 100 infringements a day. If everyone had paid the full £70 fine (rather than the discounted £35 rate for early payment) it would have brought in just under £2.7 million.

I know the location of this bus gate well in York Place – on the main north south entry/exit into the city centre but as the so called ‘controversial’ bus gate is criticised by motorists for its inadequate signage I couldn’t resist popping along to take a look and see how justified such whinging might be.

Brighton has an excellent network of bus priority measures not least bus lanes towards the city centre giving buses, taxis and cyclists exclusive use of what until a couple of years ago was the main northbound A23 exit from the city, changed when a new traffic management scheme was introduced by the City Council.

Brighton & Hove was in the vanguard installing bus lane enforcement cameras, doing so as soon as regulations permitted local authorities to issue fines for such violations. Over the years the media has regularly highlighted the significant income generated from these cameras as well as the city having a high tariff parking regime together with effective enforcement.

The Council uses the income these measures generate to fund tendered bus routes and the concessionary fares scheme so it’s a useful virtuous circle of raising income from errant motorists to subsidise bus fares and provide additional bus routes to meet social objectives.

So, just how effective are the signs warning motorists they’re about to pay £35, or even £70, if they drive through the ‘gate’?

The first thing to observe is almost all north-south traffic has already been filtered out of the road concerned making it buses, taxis and for local access only. It’s on the west side of Pavilion Gardens south of St Peters Church whereas all through traffic is now routed on the east side of the Gardens.

Traffic from the north has long been diverted at Preston Circus (top of the map above), east along Viaduct Road then south past The Level and down the eastern side of St Peter’s Church, so only local traffic from one of the side roads in the stretch of London Road south of Preston Circus will be heading south towards St Peters Church.

Here’s the sign as you approach that junction (marked “1”) on the above map if you’re local traffic heading south …

… and at the junction itself.

South of the junction to the west of St Peter’s Church local traffic can join for access to Trafalgar Street but as you approach that junction there are two signs advising you of the bus gate ahead.

Here’s the first (marked “2′ on the map)…

… and here’s the second at the junction.

Heading northwards towards the junction with Trafalgar Street, here’s the first sign (marked “3”)…

… and here’s the second sign…

… and here’s the third sign.

If motorists are unable to see or pay heed to these signs, including the one captured in the above photograph, they simply shouldn’t be driving. Are they going to ignore No Entry signs and one-way streets, going round roundabouts anti-clockwise, the wrong way up dual carriageways and other misdemeanours too?

The Argus newspaper article quotes Councillor Muten explaining with cctv enforcement only introduced in 2021 with the new traffic scheme “it takes a year or two to settle down after an initial spike” and sure enough the number of tickets issued in the first six months this year is 25% down on the same period last year. Which in some ways, is a shame, as that’s a 25% drop in income to pay for sustainable transport measures.

But the ideal is to have no infringements and effective compliance with regulations. As you stand in York Place for a time, as you can see from the photographs, it doesn’t feel there’s an issue at all and generally throughout the city, compliance with bus priority measures is very good thanks to effective enforcement. And that is probably why York Place ended up as the UK’s top netting bus gate simply because it’s being rigorously enforced with cameras and motorists are either chancing it knowing they’re in the wrong or fail to understand road signs.

Yesterday’s Argus newspaper carried a story about a motorist who won an appeal against a sign further south of York Place which the Traffic Penalty Tribunal adjudicator found to be lacking clarity despite the City Council stating the signs go above and beyond legal requirements.

The Marlborough Place bus gate has one advanced sign identifying local access ahead but at the actual gate allows buses and taxis only and other traffic must turn off leading to the adjudicator believing “I accept that motorists seeking ‘access’ may not appreciate that they subsequently fall into the category of ‘other traffic’.” Yeah, right. If I’m not a bus or taxi, I’m “other traffic” in my Highway Code book of signs.

I wonder how many other towns and cities are enforcing their regulations so assiduously as Brighton & Hove, which with modern technology doesn’t have to be an arduous task with much of it automated.

So, rather than a bus gate being “controversial” as it “rakes in one third of UK’s bus lane fines” I’d say well done Brighton & Hove City Council for leading the way and doing an excellent job. Long may that continue …… and keep funding those socially needed bus routes and concessions.

Roger French

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