How Four New Camera Sites Could Catch Lancashire Drivers Making Banned Turns

Drivers who routinely swing the wrong way at a handful of Lancashire junctions could soon find a £70 penalty charge notice waiting in the post. Lancashire County Council has opened a public consultation on four new camera sites that would catch motorists making banned turns, and if the plans go ahead they would double the number of locations across the county where this kind of enforcement is in place.

The proposed cameras would sit at two junctions in Preston, one in Leyland and one in Accrington, all spots where the council says drivers ignore turning restrictions every day. The consultation runs until 27 July 2026, which gives residents and regular road users a short window to comment before any decision is taken. Here is where the cameras could go, how the fines work, and what to do whether you want to object or simply stay on the right side of the rules.

Where the Four New Cameras Could Go

All four proposed sites involve drivers ignoring a turning restriction, and the council has set out the safety case for each one. At the junction of Maudland Road and Fylde Road in Preston, a no right turn is regularly flouted. The council says the layout is designed to push traffic into a left turn only, and that breaking the restriction brings vehicles into conflict with oncoming traffic on Fylde Road, a busy route near the city centre. There has been one injury accident there in the past five years.

At Romford Road and Blackpool Road in Preston, the council reports regular complaints about traffic turning right out of Romford Road, just a short distance from the busy Deepdale Retail Park. Evidence suggests the road is used as a shortcut to avoid the traffic signals on Blackpool Road, and one accident has been recorded at the junction in the last three years. In Leyland, the junction of Chapel Brow and the B5254 Golden Hill Lane has the most concerning record of the four, with five injury accidents in the past five years. The council says drivers turning illegally have no clear view of the signals on a nearby pedestrian crossing, leading to near misses and red light violations. The fourth site, at Holme Street and St James Street in Accrington, carries a left turn only restriction that is regularly ignored. No injury accidents have been recorded there recently, but the council says drivers breaking the rule cause near misses and prompt regular complaints.

How the Penalties and Warning Period Work

If the cameras are approved and switched on, a driver who ignores the turning restriction at any of the four sites would be issued a £70 penalty charge notice, reduced to £35 if it is paid within 21 days. The council has confirmed it usually gives a grace period when new monitoring equipment goes live, during which first time offenders are sent a warning letter for a short time rather than an immediate fine. That softer start is now standard practice and is intended to give regular users a chance to adjust before money changes hands. Even so, the warning is a one off at each site, so a driver who keeps making the same turn after that first letter will start paying, and the council has been clear that the discount only applies to those who deal with a charge promptly rather than letting it slide.

As with all moving traffic penalties, this is a civil matter rather than a criminal one. The fine is issued by the council, not the police, and it does not add any points to your licence. The registered keeper is identified through DVLA records and the notice is posted to the address on the V5C logbook, so keeping that address up to date is the simplest way to avoid missing the discount deadline. Leave a charge unpaid and unchallenged for too long and it can rise to the full amount, then be registered as a debt and passed to enforcement agents, so a £35 ticket can spiral into something far larger if it is ignored.

Why Lancashire Is Doubling Its Camera Network

Lancashire only switched on its first four moving traffic cameras in February 2026, on Charnley Street and at the Ringway and Bow Lane junction in Preston, at the Morecambe Road junction in Lancaster, and at the Hyndburn Road junction in Accrington. That rollout came almost three years after the council was first given the green light, a delay it attributed to work to ensure the equipment offered value for money. The new proposals would take the network from four sites to eight.

The legal basis sits with powers the government handed to councils outside London, allowing them to enforce so called moving traffic offences with approved cameras. These cover far more than banned turns. They also include entering a yellow box junction when the exit is not clear, ignoring no entry signs, driving the wrong way down a one way street and driving where motor vehicles are banned. Motoring Chronicle has reported how the spread of this enforcement has already cost English drivers close to £1 million in yellow box fines in a single year. Once a council has initial approval from the Department for Transport, it can install further cameras without needing fresh sign off from Whitehall, which is why networks like Lancashire’s can grow quickly.

County Councillor Warren Goldsworthy, the cabinet member for highways and transport, said the planned locations had been chosen using data focused on “the areas where issues are most persistent.” He added: “When traffic restrictions are ignored it can lead to congestion, delays and increased safety risks for other road users. The proposed locations have been identified based on feedback from residents and evidence of drivers repeatedly ignoring the existing restrictions.” The scale of the problem is not in doubt at one site at least. When the Leyland restriction was introduced in 2023, the Lancashire Post watched 21 drivers make the illegal turn in the space of just 90 minutes, a rate that helps explain why the council wants a camera there. The county has also signalled that, with the power to install cameras more freely, it intends to keep reviewing junctions where rule breaking is common, so drivers elsewhere in Lancashire should not assume these four are the end of the matter.

How to Have Your Say and Avoid a Fine

The consultation is open until 27 July 2026, and the council is asking in particular for views on any safety concerns at the four sites and the times of day when problems tend to occur. Comments can be submitted by email to the council, with details available through Lancashire County Council’s own announcement and local press coverage. This is the stage at which residents who support the cameras, and drivers who think a junction is poorly signed or badly laid out, can put their case before any decision is made.

For drivers who simply want to avoid a charge, the message is the same at all four junctions: the turning restrictions already exist, so the only thing changing is the chance of being caught. If you drive these routes, take a moment to check the signs and road markings on approach rather than relying on habit or a sat nav that may not reflect the current layout. If a notice does arrive and you believe it is unfair, you can challenge it informally, then make a formal representation to the council, and if that fails you can take the case to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal at no cost. Anyone who has covered this ground before can read our earlier report on how Lancashire’s first illegal turn cameras began catching drivers, which shows how quickly penalties can mount once a site is live.

Sources:

• Lancashire Evening Post: The four Lancashire roads where drivers could soon be fined
• Lancashire County Council: Drivers to be fined under new powers
• GOV.UK: Traffic Management Act 2004 and moving traffic enforcement