September 2018
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17
News
New bus lane cameras go live in the Stokes
A
set of five new bus lane enforcement cameras has been installed in South Gloucestershire, three of them at locations along the M1 MetroBus route through Bradley Stoke and Stoke Gifford. Locally, the cameras are: • On the Bradley Stoke Way junction onto the A38 Gloucester Road southbound (Aztec West) • On Bradley Stoke Way northbound, just before Patchway Brook Roundabout (near Aldi) • On the Stoke Gifford By-Pass northbound, just before Parkway North Roundabout The camera at the top end of Bradley Stoke Way (Aztec West) went live in early July. As we went to press, all but one of the other four new cameras were understood to be operational. A penalty charge notices (PCN) will be issued to anyone who infringes the bus lanes and these will include a secure web link to a video showing the offence. A South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) spokesperson said: “Each potential infringement will be reviewed by a qualified officer and if there were any mitigating factors, such as needing to pull over for an emergency vehicle, then we wouldn’t issue the PCN.” Cllr Paul Hughes, SGC Cabinet member for communities, said: “These new cameras will help us tackle the abuse of bus lanes and bus gates by unauthorised
vehicles, and also help ensure that buses and emergency vehicles can reach their destination without unnecessary hold-ups.” “We are not trying to catch anyone out, we want the cameras to be easily visible and we have made an effort to ensure that signs and road markings are as clear as possible to motorists. Hopefully, motorists will avoid incurring penalties by not driving in lanes reserved for buses.” The monitoring system uses automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) to identify unauthorised vehicles and generate penalty notices. The Journal understand that warning letters rather than PCNs were issued during an initial “grace” period following the installation of the new cameras, but this has now expired and fines are now being issued. As we went to press, SGC told us that 998 warning notices and 699 PCNs had already been issued for infringements detected by the new cameras. Installing the five new cameras has cost £178k, funded out of the West of England’s 2017/18 allocation from the government’s Local Growth Fund. Three further bus lane enforcement sites are being prepared and can have cameras relocated to them if issues arise. These are located at Highwood Road (Patchway) westbound,
A sign warning of bus lane enforcement cameras on Bradley Stoke Way
Bradley Stoke Way southbound (just before Great Stoke Roundabout) and Coldharbour Lane northbound (just before the UWE roundabout). In response to a query from the Journal, SGC says it has issued 28,929 PCNs and collected £633,444 in fines since
installing its first three bus lane cameras back in 2015. These are at Highwood Road, Patchway; New Road, Stoke Gifford and Gloucester Road northbound (Aztec West). For more info, visit www.southglos.gov.uk/ buslanecameras
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