How many bus lane Penalty Charge Notices London Borough of Harrow issues, from which cameras, how much it raises, and how often challenges succeed — from data released under Freedom of Information (ref 10996227).
26,016
PCNs issued in 4 years2021/22–2025/26
£1.61m
gross income, 4 yearsnet of costs not held
6,427
PCNs in 2025/26across 10 sites
23%
of challenges upheld2025/26
This page reports data released by London Borough of Harrow under the Freedom of Information Act (10996227, responded 2026-09-01). Figures are the council's own. BusLaneCheck is independent and not affiliated with the council. Compare every UK authority →
What these figures do and don't cover. Two things about this table need saying before the numbers are read, both of them limits of what Harrow released rather than of its enforcement. First, every year here is eleven months, not twelve. The council's figures are broken down month by month, but in all five years the December rows carry a monthly total with no breakdown beneath them, so December cannot be separated out from the other camera penalties and is missing from each year below. Each annual figure is therefore an undercount, by roughly a twelfth. Second, 2023/24 is not shown at all. In that year the number of penalties recorded under the bus lane contravention code falls to 1,611, against about 6,500 in each of the four years either side, and the bus stop code falls from 4,438 to 24 — while three other contravention codes rise by almost exactly the amount those two fall, the council's total penalties across all codes keep going up, and only one of its bus lane sites is still recording anything. That pattern is what a change in how contraventions are coded looks like, not a year in which Harrow stopped enforcing its bus lanes. Publishing 1,611 as the number of bus lane penalties for 2023/24 would state something the council's own data contradicts, so the year is left out and has been put to the council for explanation.
Bus lane PCNs issued per yearGross PCN income per year
Across the four years that can be reported, Harrow issued 26,016 bus lane penalties and received £1,608,616 in payments against them. The annual figure is remarkably flat — between 6,400 and 6,625 every year — which is unusual; most authorities show a clear trend one way or the other. What moves is where the penalties come from. Northolt Road at the Alexandra Avenue junction is the single biggest source in every year and 33.7 per cent of the four-year total on its own, but it fell from 3,002 in 2021/22 to 1,630 the next year before climbing back to 2,326. The sharpest change is at Kenton Road's junction with Honeypot Lane, which issued 3 penalties in 2021/22 and 5 in total across the first two years, then 1,661 in 2024/25 — the site went from negligible to the borough's second busiest in the space of the gap in the data. Two sites went the other way and have issued nothing since 2022/23: Kenton Road at Orchard Grove, and the Kenton Road service road. Payments work out at £56 to £67 per penalty issued across the four years, which is consistent with most drivers paying at the discounted rate and a fifth or so of penalties never being paid at all — though the council did not release the bus lane discount figures that would let that be stated as fact rather than inferred.
Which sites issue the most fines
Camera-enforced bus lane locations ranked by PCNs issued in 2025/26. The last column is the 4-year total.
Location
2025/26
PCNs (2025/26)
4-year total
Northolt Rd Jct Alexandra Ave
2,326
8,773
Kenton Road Junct Honeypot Lane
1,064
2,730
Kenton Road Ha3 J/W Kenton Gardens
884
4,703
Village Way East
719
2,263
Station Road Ha1 - O/S St Jerome
459
2,758
Northolt Rd - Northbound
393
1,951
Sheepcote Road (Kenton Road - Gayton Road)
276
835
Northolt Rd - Southbound
165
197
Uxbridge Road (railway station / Morrisons)
93
226
Kenton Road Ha3 J/W Orchard Grove and Kenton Rd Service Rd
0
1,422
The figures below are the council's own camera site names, and none of them is tied to a particular lane page here. That is deliberate. Harrow reports several cameras per road — five separate Northolt Road rows and seven Kenton Road rows — against one page for each road on this site, and the names it uses are junction abbreviations that cannot be matched to a specific stretch of lane without guessing which one is meant. Attributing a number to a page on that basis would be inventing precision the response does not contain. The council's camera list also shows that most of its cameras enforce several contraventions at once, so a camera that catches bus lane drivers is usually also enforcing a box junction, a bus stop or a no-entry at the same location. Ten sites are listed; the response names a further 27 street labels that between them account for 158 penalties over the four years, most of them single figures, and those are left out as noise rather than shown as sites.
Challenges & appeals — do they work?
Formal representations to the council. Drivers made 298 formal challenges over 2 years.
Year
Challenges
Upheld
Rejected
Success rate
2024/25
123
40
83
33%
2025/26
175
40
135
23%
The council's own figures show the share of challenges upheld went from 33% in 2024/25 to 23% in 2025/26 — so a well-grounded challenge is worth making. Harrow's challenge figures are bus-lane-only, which is better than most authorities manage, but they start late: the council's representations data does not cover bus lane contraventions before November 2023, so there is nothing for 2021/22 or 2022/23. In the two full years that are covered, drivers made 123 formal challenges in 2024/25 and 175 in 2025/26. The council accepted 40 in each year, so the share of challenges that succeeded fell from about one in three to a little under one in four as the number of challenges rose. Set against roughly 6,500 penalties a year, only about two to three per cent of drivers challenge at all. The council also released 1,441 appeals to the independent tribunal with their outcomes, but did not split them by contravention type, so how many were about bus lanes is unknown and they are not counted here. See our guide to appealing a bus lane PCN for the grounds that win.
The fine itself
A bus lane PCN from London Borough of Harrow is £160, reduced to £80 if paid within 14 days. It is a civil penalty — there are no licence points. £160, halved to £80 if paid within 14 days. The higher band rose from £130 and £65 on 7 April 2025, so only the last of the years below ran at the current rate.
What the council does not hold or publish
Income net of costs. The council gave the gross take. It told us it does not hold a net figure for bus lanes, because the cost of running the cameras sits in a wider service budget and is not tracked separately.
PCNs paid at the discounted rate. The council reported 131,867 discounted payments across the five years, but that figure covers every kind of camera penalty it issues, not bus lanes, and it is not split by year. There is therefore no way to say how many bus lane penalties were paid at the £80 rate, and none is shown here.
Appeals to the tribunal. The council gave 1,441 appeals with their outcomes, but did not break them down by contravention, so the bus lane share is unknown. The challenge figures shown above are bus-lane-only; the tribunal ones would not be, so they are left out.