How many bus lane Penalty Charge Notices London Borough of Hillingdon issues, from which cameras, how much it raises — from data released under Freedom of Information (ref FOI 05675).
10,232
PCNs issued in 5 years2021–2025
£466,294
gross income, 5 yearsnet of costs not held
304
PCNs in 2025across 4 cameras
This page reports data released by London Borough of Hillingdon under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI 05675, responded 2026-08-21). Figures are the council's own. BusLaneCheck is independent and not affiliated with the council. The source documents are linked at the foot of this page. Compare every UK authority →
Bus lane PCNs issued per yearGross PCN income per year
Hillingdon is an unusual case: its bus lane enforcement stopped almost completely for two years and then came back. The four cameras issued 4,694 penalties in 2022, then 1,851 in 2023, then 173 in the whole of 2024 and 304 in 2025 — and then 4,202 in the first eight months of 2026 alone, more than in any full year since 2022. Income tracks it, falling from £186,571 in 2022 to £8,615 in 2024 before recovering to £117,440 in the part of 2026 the council has counted. The council did not explain the gap and was not asked to; what its figures show is that a driver's chance of being caught in a Hillingdon bus lane in 2024 was a fraction of what it was the year before or the year after. The 2026 part year is excluded from the totals above because it covers eight months, not twelve.
Which cameras issue the most fines
Camera-enforced bus lane locations ranked by PCNs issued in 2025. The last column is the 5-year total.
The council named four camera-enforced locations: Coldharbour Lane in Hayes, Yeading Lane in Yeading, and two separate points on Uxbridge Road — one at the retail park and one outside number 178. The two Uxbridge Road cameras are shown as one row here because this site carries a single Uxbridge Road page; across 2021 to 2025 the retail park camera issued 1,366 penalties and the other Uxbridge Road camera 6,840. Uxbridge Road is where the enforcement is: it accounts for 8,206 of the 10,232 penalties in these five years, four fifths of the borough's total. The two quieter sites have both gone silent at some point — Coldharbour Lane recorded nothing at all in 2024 or 2025 before issuing 1,120 penalties in 2026, and Yeading Lane has recorded nothing since January 2024 even though the council still lists it as camera-enforced. The council holds no per-location breakdown of income, so the money on this page cannot be split between the cameras.
Challenges & appeals — do they work?
Almost nobody appeals a Hillingdon bus lane penalty, and the council rarely defends the ones who do. Across the whole of the council's figures — 14,434 penalties between January 2021 and August 2026 — there were ten appeals to the independent adjudicator — fewer than one for every 1,400 penalties issued: one in 2021/22, four in 2022/23, five in 2023/24 and none since. Of those ten the council did not contest six, meaning it gave up rather than argue the case; it lost one outright and won three. The earlier stage, where you write to the council itself, is the one that matters to most drivers, and the council refused to say how many of those challenges it receives or accepts, citing the cost of compiling it. 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 Hillingdon is £160, reduced to £80 if paid within 14 days. It is a civil penalty — there are no licence points. The penalty changed part-way through these figures. A bus lane PCN in a London borough was £130, halved to £65, until 7 April 2025, when the higher band rose to £160 and £80. Four of the five years on this page ran entirely at the old rate and only part of 2025 ran at the new one, so do not divide the income by £160 to work out how many drivers paid.
What the council does not hold or publish
Income net of operating costs. The council was asked for income net of the cost of running the cameras and answered that it "does not hold a recorded figure" for it. Every pound figure on this page is therefore gross, before Hillingdon pays for the cameras, the back office and the appeals.
Formal representations — how many were made, and how many worked. Refused under section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, the cost limit. The council says it holds the underlying information but that no report collates it, so producing it would mean reviewing cases one at a time and would take more than the 18 hours of officer time the law allows. It offered to help narrow the request. Only the tribunal appeal figures came through, and they are in the challenges section above.
The discounted-rate count, year by year. The council gave one figure — 6,278 penalties paid at the discounted rate — covering the whole period from 2021 to August 2026 rather than a total for each year, so it cannot be set beside any single year on this page.
When each camera started enforcing. The request asked for the date enforcement began at each location. The council answered: "We do not have the dates enforcement commenced."
The bus lanes behind these cameras
Each of these locations has a full page with operating hours, permitted vehicles and the governing traffic order: