Swindon Council Issued 23,898 Bus Lane Fines, Up 29.8 Percent, at £70 Each

• Swindon Borough Council’s annual enforcement report for the year to 31 March 2026 counts 23,898 bus lane, bus gate and camera car notices, up 29.8 percent on the 18,416 of 2024/25.
• Two Penzance Drive locations issued 13,405 of them, 56.1 percent of the total, and the 9,878 from the first location alone carry a face value of £691,460 at £70 each.
• Bus lane notice income rose 16.0 percent to £783,000 from £675,000 while parking notices fell 12.5 percent to 30,606.

Two Penzance Drive Locations Caught More Drivers Than the Other Ten Combined

Swindon issued 23,898 bus lane, bus gate and camera car penalty charge notices in 2025/26, which is 5,482 more than the 18,416 of 2024/25 and a rise of 29.8 percent. Each notice carries a £70 charge. The total also sits 673 above the 23,225 of 2023/24, so the drop to 18,416 was the odd year out and 2025/26 is the highest of the three years in the report.

A driver who pays within 14 days of issue pays £35. The council also halves the charge when a formal representation reaches it within 14 days of the date the notice was served.

Penzance Drive supplies most of the total. The council’s location table gives Penzance Drive 1 a count of 9,878 notices and Penzance Drive 2 a count of 3,527. Together that is 13,405, or 56.1 percent of the year’s 23,898. The ten other fixed locations issued 10,462 between them.

At the full £70, the 9,878 notices from Penzance Drive 1 carry a face value of £691,460. All 23,898 notices carry a face value of £1,672,860. The £783,000 the council booked as bus lane income is 46.8 percent of that figure. The report does not explain the gap, and the income can include payments on notices issued in earlier years.

The rest of the table runs from East Wichel Way with 2,007 notices to Fleming Way, where the three locations F01, F02 and F03 issued 235, 1,683 and 1,426, which is 3,344 in all. Ferndale Road issued 1,658, Princes Street 893, Cricklade Road 861, Bristol Street 696, Mazurek Way 552 and Ermin Street 451. Those twelve counts add up to 23,867. The council’s separate camera car table for schools and bus stops lists exactly 31 notices: 10 on Durham Street, 9 on Queens Drive, 6 on Windsor Road and 6 across Castle View Road, Plymouth Street, The Brow and Ermin Street. Together they reach the 23,898 total.

The report does not say what the Penzance Drive restriction is or when it applies, and the council offers no reason for the 29.8 percent rise.

Parking Notices Fell 12.5 Percent While Bus Lane Notices Climbed

Parking enforcement went the opposite way. Swindon issued 30,606 parking notices in 2025/26, which is 4,356 fewer than the 34,962 of 2024/25 and a drop of 12.5 percent. On street notices slipped from 27,362 to 23,937 and off street notices from 7,600 to 6,222. Notices at the £70 higher level fell from 24,410 to 22,231, and notices at the £50 lower level from 10,552 to 8,375.

Add the two together and the council issued 54,504 notices against 53,378 the year before, up 1,126 or 2.1 percent. Bus lane notices made up 43.8 percent of that total, up from 34.5 percent.

The money followed the notices. Bus lane income reached £783,000, up £108,000 or 16.0 percent on £675,000, though still £55,000 below the £838,000 of 2023/24. Spread across the notices issued, £783,000 is £32.76 a notice, against £36.65 in 2024/25. The council does not say how much of each year’s income came from notices issued in earlier years, so the figure is a guide.

The finance table puts the bus lane account’s costs at £219,000, before departmental overheads and central support, and the surplus at £564,000, up 23.7 percent from £456,000. The council says its surplus is spent on public passenger transport services, highway improvement, maintenance and other environmental improvements. Central government guidance tells councils that civil parking enforcement is not a revenue raising exercise and that they should set no targets for revenue or the number of notices.

Bus lane enforcement runs well beyond Swindon. MoneySuperMarket sent Freedom of Information requests to councils and transport authorities and counted more than 1.17 million bus lane and bus gate fines in the first six months of 2026 that raised more than £37.7 million. Swindon’s figures cover a full year, so the two counts run on different calendars.

What Happens to a Bus Lane Notice Nobody Pays

Most drivers pay quickly. The report counts 16,475 notices paid at the discounted rate in 2025/26, up 19.4 percent on 13,800. Another 1,418 were paid at the full or surcharged rate, up 27.2 percent on 1,115. At £35 each, the discounted payments come to £576,625, where the same notices at £70 would have come to £1,153,250. The report does not split these payments by the year the notice was issued.

The council words the discount window two ways. One sentence gives 14 days from issue, and another refers to an initial 14 or 21 days, so a driver should read the dates printed on the notice itself.

After that, GOV.UK sets the national path. A penalty charge notice unpaid after 28 days brings a charge certificate, with 14 days to pay the original fine plus 50 percent more. For a £70 bus lane notice that is £105. A court order demanding payment follows if the charge certificate goes unpaid for 14 days.

Swindon registered 5,627 debts in 2025/26, up 8.3 percent on 5,195, and obtained 5,001 warrants, up 15.2 percent on 4,340. Bailiffs remitted £135,900.78 to the council, which is £14,165.65 or 11.6 percent more than the £121,735.13 of 2024/25. The report does not split debts and warrants between parking and bus lane notices. For bus lane notices the share of cases sent to enforcement agents held at 8 percent, the same as in the two previous years, while the parking share rose from 8 percent to 10 percent. From that point the bailiff fees on an unpaid fine follow a statutory scale that changed on 1 May 2026.

The council wrote off or cancelled 1,931 parking and bus lane notices after failing to trace the registered keeper, up from 1,895. It names out of date DVLA records and incorrect address details as the causes. It does not clamp or remove vehicles, though removal is under review for vehicles that persistently evade payment of notices or pose a hazard.

Appeals Reached 52 and Drivers Won 17

Appeals to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal against Swindon notices, parking and bus lane together, climbed to 52 in 2025/26 from 35 and 32, a rise of 48.6 percent on the year before. Of the 52, the council did not contest 9, the adjudicator allowed 8, refused 33 and left 2 undecided. That puts 17 of 52, or 32.7 percent, on the driver’s side, up from 10 of 35, or 28.6 percent, in 2024/25 and 3 of 32, or 9.4 percent, in 2023/24.

Formal representations to the council rose 25.0 percent, from 2,409 to 3,012, and the council accepted about 504 of them, or 16.7 percent. It describes that count as approximate and covers parking and bus lane notices together.

The tribunal’s national bus lane figures give the wider comparison. It received 3,667 bus lane appeals in 2025/26, down 5.2 percent from 3,869, and decided 3,299. It allowed 1,160 and refused 1,650, so 35.2 percent of decided cases went to the driver and 50.0 percent to the council. Of the 1,160 allowed, 866 were not contested by the council, which is 74.7 percent. Across every penalty type the tribunal handles, 4,831 of the 7,152 appeals allowed were wins that enforcers did not contest.

The appeal is free to the driver. An independent adjudicator, who is a barrister or senior solicitor, reviews the notice, and the decision binds the driver and the council.

How to Challenge a Bus Lane Notice in Swindon

A bus lane notice is served by post after the event, so there is no informal stage. The first challenge is a formal representation. Parking tickets start with an informal challenge, and that route does not apply to bus lane notices.

Send the representation by email to the council’s parking address or through the representation button on the council’s online parking pages. State the reasons for cancelling the notice and attach evidence. A representation received within 14 days of the date of service keeps the 50 percent discount in play. GOV.UK allows 28 days to challenge a penalty charge notice and says a challenge made inside 14 days and then rejected could still be settled at half the fine.

The council must cancel the notice when a statutory ground is established. The grounds in the report cover a contravention that did not occur; a driver who was never the owner, had ceased to be the owner before the date or became the owner after it; a vehicle driven by a person without the owner’s consent; a vehicle on hire where the hirer signed a statement accepting liability; a penalty above the amount applicable in the circumstances; a procedural impropriety by the enforcement authority; an invalid order; and a notice already paid in full or at the discounted rate.

The council must also look at any mitigation put forward. A rejection comes as a notice of rejection, which gives 28 days to pay or appeal to the independent tribunal. Seventeen of Swindon’s 52 appeals went the driver’s way last year, so a rejection at the council stage is not the last word.

Timing decides the cost. A challenge made inside 14 days that the council rejects can still end with a payment of half the fine, which is £35. A notice left unpaid after 28 days brings a charge certificate that adds 50 percent to the £70, making £105.

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