How many bus lane Penalty Charge Notices Bradford Council issues, from which cameras, how much it raises, and how often challenges succeed — from Bradford Council's published open data, with the challenge figures released under Freedom of Information (ref FOI 28481).
199,670
PCNs issued in 5 years2021/22–2025/26
£6.81m
gross income, 5 yearsnet of costs not held
44,717
PCNs in 2025/26across 32 cameras
41%
of challenges upheld2025/26
This page combines two sources, because the council answered with both. Asked for penalty counts and income, Bradford Council refused under section 21 and pointed at its own open data portal, so the penalty and income figures here are read from the datasets it publishes there (IMP0020 Bus Lane Numbers Monthly and IMP0019 Bus Lane Income, read 21 August 2026). The challenge figures come from what it did answer under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI 28481, responded 2026-08-13), together with an internal review completed on 2026-08-18 that settled which of its two penalty counts to use. Figures are the council's own. BusLaneCheck is independent and not affiliated with the council. Compare every UK authority →
Bus lane PCNs issued per yearGross PCN income per year
The dip in 2024/25 is not drivers behaving better. Penalties fell from 45,365 to 26,050 and income with them, from £1.55m to £1.03m — and almost all of that is one street: Bridge Street went from 21,152 penalties to 2,467 in a single year as three of its four cameras stopped issuing. That one location accounts for over four fifths of the district-wide fall. The recovery in 2025/26 is just as easily explained: five new city-centre cameras switched on in October 2025 and issued 13,405 penalties before the year was out, taking the district back to 44,717 and income to a five-year high of £1.50m. Underneath that churn the older cameras have been remarkably steady — Bolton Road has issued between 4,100 and 5,700 every year without fail, and Church Bank has climbed gently throughout. Across the five years the council received £6.81m against 199,670 penalties. One figure to be careful with if you have seen Bradford's numbers quoted elsewhere. The council holds two counts and they differ by about a tenth: 224,234 penalties over the five years in the letter it wrote us, against 199,670 in the data it publishes. Asked to explain, it confirmed that the higher figure counts every case that entered its system and was given a penalty reference, while the published data counts only the penalty charge notices and notices to owner actually served. The served figure is the one used throughout this page.
Which cameras issue the most fines
Camera-enforced bus lane locations ranked by PCNs issued in 2025/26. The last column is the 5-year total.
Bradford publishes penalty counts for 32 cameras. They are grouped here to match the bus lanes they enforce, so Church Bank's two directions count as one location and the four Bridge Street cameras as another; the grouped totals reconcile exactly with the council's own total column in all five years. The picture changed sharply in October 2025, when five new city-centre cameras switched on — Vicar Lane, Well Street, Princes Way at the Manchester Road junction, and two on Hall Ings, at the George Street junction and by Jacobs Well. Vicar Lane is the one to know about: it issued 11,315 penalties in its first six months, more than any other single camera in the district issued in the whole year, and more than the whole of Bridge Street, Bradford's busiest location, has managed in any year since 2023/24. The five together accounted for 13,405 penalties before the year was out. Over the five years Bridge Street leads on 66,129, then Church Bank 40,008 and Bolton Road 22,813 — though Bridge Street's total is now largely historic, since three of its four cameras have stopped issuing. Two rows are all but dormant: the Market Street camera has recorded nothing since 2022/23, and Manningham Lane West four penalties in five years.
Challenges & appeals — do they work?
Formal representations to the council. Drivers made 22,670 formal challenges over 5 years.
Year
Challenges
Upheld
Rejected
Success rate
2021/22
4,809
2,401
1,604
50%
2022/23
4,324
2,040
1,230
47%
2023/24
5,899
3,382
1,774
57%
2024/25
2,839
1,540
1,013
54%
2025/26
4,799
1,961
1,966
41%
The council's own figures show the share of challenges upheld went from 50% in 2021/22 to 41% in 2025/26 — so a well-grounded challenge is worth making. Formal challenges peaked at 5,899 in 2023/24 and fell with the penalties to 2,839 in 2024/25. The council upheld about half of them in every year up to 2024/25 — 3,382 of 5,899 at the peak — but 2025/26 broke that pattern: of 4,799 challenges it accepted 1,961 and rejected 1,966, the first year it rejected more than it allowed. These are challenges to the council itself. It gave no figures for appeals that went on from there to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal. See our guide to appealing a bus lane PCN for the grounds that win.
The fine itself
A bus lane PCN from Bradford Council is £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 21 days. It is a civil penalty — there are no licence points. The FOI response did not restate the penalty. £70, halved to £35 within 21 days, is what all 18 Bradford lane pages already carry from the council's own published bus lane list, and the council's published income backs it up: across the five years it received £34.10 for every penalty served, which sits just under the £35 discounted rate as it must if most drivers pay early.
What the council does not hold or publish
Penalties paid at the discounted rate. The council did give these — 33,674 in 2021/22, then 26,858, 31,813, 18,739 and 34,593 — but on the counting basis used in its letter, which counts every case that entered its system and was allocated a penalty reference. The penalty totals on this page are the narrower, served-penalty basis the council publishes as open data. Dividing one by the other would overstate the share of drivers paying early by about a tenth, so the counts are recorded here rather than turned into a percentage.
Appeals to the tribunal. The council answered the challenge question with a single 'appealed' figure alongside the numbers accepted and rejected, which on those counts is the formal-representation stage rather than the tribunal. It gave no figures for appeals that went on to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal, so the table below is the council stage only.
Cost of running the cameras. No operating-cost figure was published for bus lane enforcement specifically, so the income here is gross. It is not what the council keeps.
Why three Bridge Street cameras stopped. Three of the four Bridge Street cameras — at Broadway, at Market Street and at Hall Ings — issued between 1,842 and 7,938 penalties a year until 2023/24, then almost nothing: 550, 610 and 531 in 2024/25 and 0, 0 and 3 in 2025/26. The fourth, at the Interchange, dipped in the same year and then recovered to 5,270. The council has not said whether the three were switched off, removed, or taken out by the city centre works, and the question was not part of the request answered here.
The bus lanes behind these cameras
Each of these locations has a full page with operating hours, permitted vehicles and the governing traffic order: