At least £43,000 worth of fines were handed out in less than a month by Croydon Council because of its decision to temporarily close off roads outside of three schools.
Heavers Farm Primary in Dinsdale Gardens, Selhurst, St Chad’s in Alverston Gardens, Selhurst and Woodcote Primary in Dunsfold Rise, Coulsdon (including Fairfield Way and Meadow Rise) are all part of a pilot project that has seen people banned from driving through the roads outside the schools during morning and afternoon runs.
A Freedom of Information request was submitted by the Croydon Guardian to find out just how many people had been handed a penalty notice charge from October 2 - October 27 (the first four weeks drivers were being issued fines).
In total 665 PCN's were handed out by council over the time frame.
Each PCN charge costs £130 (discounted to £65 if paid within 14 days). This means a minimum of £43,225 worth of fines were handed out with a maximum of £86,450.
When asked whether council thinks the pilot project is working, given the seemingly high number of people still driving through the restricted roads a spokesman said: “The council introduced this pilot scheme to make the school run better and safer for pupils and residents alike, and the schools have reported less congestion and more punctuality.
"Given these schools have a combined pupil roll of over 2,900, it is encouraging that so far we’ve only needed to issue an average of 11 penalty charge notices per school per day.
“To help us decide whether to continue the scheme when the consultation ends, we would encourage any parents and residents who haven’t given feedback on this pilot to do so.”
The amount of PCN's issued for each road are:
Alverston Road - 112
Dinsdale Road - 195
Fairfield Way - 33
Meadow Rise - 325
Have you been fined as a result of the driving ban?The roads are not physically closed to traffic; instead, the council uses temporary automatic number plate recognition cameras to scan if vehicles passing through the pedestrian zones have permission.
Send your thoughts to riley.krause@newsquest.co.uk
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