Manchester bus lane fines make £10m from one city street

A council has made more than £10m from bus lane fines on just one street in 17 months, data has revealed.

A Freedom of Information request showed thousands of drivers have been fined for driving along the Oxford Road bus gate in Manchester.

The bus gate means parts of the road are only open to buses, black cabs and pedal cycles from 06:00 to 21:00.

Manchester City Council said it was content that the signs in place were adequate.

Drivers in cars going through this section face a £60 fine that reduces to £30 if paid within 21 days.

Since the beginning of 2020, a total of 182,707 fines have been handed out for cars driving in the bus lane along Oxford Road, data obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service showed.

For the period April 2022 to September 2023, the council collected £10,241,545.13 in revenue.

The most lucrative section of the road for the council is between Charles Street and Brancaster Road, where a total of 119,272 fines have been handed out between the start of 2020 and 30 September.

In 2018, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal found some signs on some sections of Oxford Road “failed to meet the required standard”.

A statement from the council said: “There are no current plans to change or add to the number of signs already in place to alert motorists to the bus lane…”