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

Analysis revealed that 82 per cent of the drivers who were fined didn’t even live in the borough

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'.

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24 comments

Avatar
eburtthebike | 2 years ago
4 likes

Is there some way the hard-pressed tax-payers of Hackney could thank these drivers for their generous donations?  Maybe a few signs saying something like

"Thank you so much for the £2.7m, and please keep giving."

or

"Every one of those £2.7m will be spent wisely, on more LTNs"

or

"Drivers!  Don't stop now!  Let's make it a round £3m!"

Avatar
swldxer | 2 years ago
5 likes

If they don't live in the area then they won't have paid the requisite council tax for road repairs. Freeloading spongers.

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brooksby replied to swldxer | 2 years ago
4 likes

I don't think council tax pays for roads any more than vehicle excise duty. Your essential point is accurate though, in that the problem is people being led by their satnavs through other people's residential streets as a "shortcut"...

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swldxer replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
9 likes

From gov.uk:

Council tax is a system of local taxation collected by Local Authorities. It is a tax on domestic property. Some property is exempt from council tax. Some people do not have to pay council tax and some people get a discount.

This is a tax on domestic property collected by the Local Authority to pay for local services such as schools, rubbish collection, roads and street lighting.

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brooksby replied to swldxer | 2 years ago
4 likes

OK, its a fair cop and I stand corrected  1

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Captain Badger replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
10 likes

brooksby wrote:

I don't think council tax pays for roads any more than vehicle excise duty. Your essential point is accurate though, in that the problem is people being led by their satnavs through other people's residential streets as a "shortcut"...

I have a feeling that anything that's not a major highway (eg Mway and major A-road) is in fact in the LAs scope of responsibility.

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Hirsute replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
8 likes

Your council tax pays for things such as highways and infrastructure. It is stuff like motorways and major trunk roads which are centrally funded.

Paying council tax for local roads is one way to refute the 'you don't pay road tax' drivel. And if you really want to press the point, you could say I pay taxes for motorways (and that A road around Edinburgh) and I'm not allowed to use them !

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GMBasix replied to Hirsute | 2 years ago
2 likes

In fact nationally collected tax also contributes towards local roads: 52% comes from council tax, 17% from retained business rates and 31% from government grants.

So VED does contribute towards road repairs, but so does the tax on a packet of sweets (and VED pays for defence and health, etc).

Incidentally, that balance that means that, when central government funding was reduced in real terms from 2009/10 to 2018/19 by 38%, yet costs of delivering services carries on increasing, the only remaining source of revenue is local taxpayers.  they have to cover the increase in costs for both the proportion they pay plus the shortfall from government.  Meanwhile, the government demands a referendum if the council tax bill is increased by more than 2% (briefly 3%).  So now you start to understand why services start to fail when pressure is applied.

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OldRidgeback | 2 years ago
4 likes

The LTN signs in my street have been sprayed over with black paint and someone managed to spray black paint over the camera lens too. Previously someone had used a long pole to point the camera upwards. No, it wasn't me.

People routinely drive through the planters with something over the their number plate. One guy who lives round the corner has the numberplates on his Audi stuck on with velcro and he peels them off before he drives through and then sticks them back on again.

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brooksby replied to OldRidgeback | 2 years ago
5 likes

Im pretty sure that having your number plates stuck on with Velcro is a "we'll be confiscating your vehicle now, sir" type of offence, were the police to find out about it...

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Captain Badger replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
4 likes

brooksby wrote:

Im pretty sure that having your number plates stuck on with Velcro is a "we'll be confiscating your vehicle now, sir" type of offence, were the police to find out about it...

That would be a real shame if that were to happen. Imagine if someone with an anonymised forum account were to post sufficient detail for another anonymised poster to furnish the relevant authorities with sufficient evidence for them to begin an investigation. I'd imagine the owner of the car might get into trouble.

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wtjs replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
0 likes

I'm pretty sure that having your number plates stuck on with Velcro is a "we'll be confiscating your vehicle now, sir" type of offence, were the police to find out about it...

Whereas I'm pretty sure that in Lancashire they couldn't be bothered to do anything even if someone forced the knowledge on them:  'we're so busy' etc. etc. I nearly hit a minor jackpot on this close pass- tax expired the following day, and it's still untaxed today. There's a reasonable chance this is genuine car tax dodging and the vehicle is still on the roads today. So near!!

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grumpyoldcyclist replied to OldRidgeback | 2 years ago
8 likes

Why not peel them off and bin them?

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Sriracha replied to grumpyoldcyclist | 2 years ago
1 like

That would not bother some. Increasingly I see cars with no front plate. The rear plate will be so dark as to be illegible. Police obviously not bothered since the numbers of these cars is increasing by the day. Always flash motors too.

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Hirsute | 2 years ago
6 likes

Another war on the hard pressed, hard working motorists who have no alternatives.

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hawkinspeter replied to Hirsute | 2 years ago
14 likes

hirsute wrote:

Another war on the hard pressed, hard working motorists who have no alternatives.

You'll need to add 'law-abiding' to get a good bingo score with that.

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Hirsute replied to hawkinspeter | 2 years ago
6 likes

Damn !

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hmas1974 replied to hawkinspeter | 2 years ago
5 likes

Don't forget 'tax paying'

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Captain Badger | 2 years ago
17 likes

I think it's fantastic that drivers are so civic-minded they're prepared to voluntarily fund all kinds of council schemes. 

They're under no obligation at all to do this, but just can't help themselves, they're so generous with their money.

And of course they don't like to talk about all this great work for charidee, you never hear a peep out of them....

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GMBasix replied to Captain Badger | 2 years ago
14 likes

It's a sweeping tax on gammon and stupidity.

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markieteeee replied to Captain Badger | 2 years ago
12 likes

One LTN by me in Southwark was routinely ignored by a sizeable minority of motorists for the first six months after installation.  The planters are wide enough to drive through, so many continued to do so.

Then in September they put up signs saying they were enforced by camera.  There was no noticeable change in driver behaviour - the ones who observed the signs still did, the ones who didn't, didn't. I'm not sure how they knew but the newly installed cameras weren't switched on yet.  There was a two month grace period and additional signs installed (the street clutter from the multiple signs is awful) before the cameras were finally switched on and, even then, for the first two or three weeks they only sent out warning letters rather than fines.  They also continued to send warning letters to first time offenders after this (I think they still do, but I'd have to check). 

Finally, at some point in November they started issuing fines.  Comments on the live online consulation were comedy gold. 

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to markieteeee | 2 years ago
3 likes

markieteeee wrote:

One LTN by me in Southwark was routinely ignored by a sizeable minority of motorists for the first six months after installation.  The planters are wide enough to drive through, so many continued to do so.

Then in September they put up signs saying they were enforced by camera.  There was no noticeable change in driver behaviour - the ones who observed the signs still did, the ones who didn't, didn't. I'm not sure how they knew but the newly installed cameras weren't switched on yet.  There was a two month grace period and additional signs installed (the street clutter from the multiple signs is awful) before the cameras were finally switched on and, even then, for the first two or three weeks they only sent out warning letters rather than fines.  They also continued to send warning letters to first time offenders after this (I think they still do, but I'd have to check). 

Finally, at some point in November they started issuing fines.  Comments on the live online consultation were comedy gold. 

No doubt asking the authorities to up their donations to the greater good..

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ReCycling Dave replied to Captain Badger | 2 years ago
4 likes

So they'll be funding some more LTNs then? how amusing

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Captain Badger replied to ReCycling Dave | 2 years ago
6 likes

ReCycling Dave wrote:

So they'll be funding some more LTNs then? how amusing

I guess they will, they must really love em so...

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