Hackney Council collects £2.7 million from drivers who breached LTN rules

Hackney Council has collected £2.7m by fining drivers for breaching low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) rules.

Parking officials have given motorists 69,956 penalty charge notices (PCNs) since the scheme was introduced in June 2020.

Hackney issued 44,525 PCNs for LTN breaches in 2020 alone – behind only Lewisham Council, who gave 61,351 from July to December.

Internal council analysis revealed that 82 per cent of drivers fined didn’t even live in the borough lending support to accusations that drivers are treating Hackney as a 'rat run', the Hackney Gazette reports. 

A network of council-run CCTV cameras monitors traffic in and out of the neighbourhoods.

> Hackney anti-LTN group fails to secure judicial review of emergency active travel measures

Drivers caught breaching the LTN are immediately sent a £130 fine in the post – but the sum is reduced by half if paid within 14 days.

The £2,748,283 raised through fines will be put back into the borough’s transport budget.

An analysis of the London Fields LTN revealed that traffic dropped by an average of 44 per cent – with some roads seeing reductions of up to 94 per cent.

Cllr Mete Coban, portfolio holder for transport, said: “LTNs are important because they discourage through-traffic from using neighbourhood streets – where there are fewer pedestrian crossings and roads are less able to handle high volumes of traffic – and encourage people to switch local car journeys for walking and cycling."

“We don’t want to issue anyone a PCN, but unfortunately, a small minority of drivers are continuing to try to use Hackney’s residential streets as rat-runs."

The councillor stated that the high number of PCNs demonstrates the "scale of the challenge'.