Leeds Bus Lane Fines — PCNs, Income & Appeals

Leeds issued 316,417 bus lane penalties in five years and took £10.66m for them — £33.70 for every penalty issued. The pattern is driven almost entirely by when new cameras switch on. Penalties rose from 34,669 in 2021/22 to 90,222 in 2022/23, the year the two Bridge End gates began enforcing: Bridge End at Dock Street alone issued 33,913 penalties in the five months after it switched on in November 2022, more than the whole city had issued in the whole of the year before. They fell back to 38,343 in 2024/25 as the older cameras settled down, then jumped again to 77,999 in 2025/26 — the year twelve of the thirty current sites started enforcing, among them Infirmary Street, which issued 9,851 penalties in its first year, and Bishopgate Street at Park Row, which issued 13,970. Income has climbed every single year even where penalties fell, from £1.41m to £3.17m, and 2025/26 is the highest of the five. Read the yearly income figures with the caveat below: the council did not say whether a year's money is cash received in that year or money owed on that year's penalties, and the two give very different per-penalty figures.

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.

These are the thirty sites on the camera list Leeds released with this response, matched to the penalties recorded against them in the council's own case-by-case data. They account for 260,215 of the 316,417 penalties; the other 54,293 were issued at thirty-two locations that are no longer on the council's list — the two largest are set out below, and the next is an "Elland Rd opp McDonalds" camera that issued 2,321 penalties in 2025/26 and appears on no list the council has released. Bridge End at Dock Street is the busiest site in the city by a wide margin — 65,433 penalties in five years, a fifth of every bus lane penalty Leeds has issued — followed by Vicar Lane at Harrison Street on 35,345 and The Headrow at Vicar Lane West on 27,618. Two things in the table need explaining. The council's data records no penalties at all at Vicar Lane and Harrison Street in 2022/23, between years in which it issued 13,740 and 10,133, and the response does not say why. And several sites show penalties in years before the start date the council gives for them — Burley Road at Studio Road, North Street at Grafton Street, Elland Road and Woodhouse Lane all appear years earlier under slightly different spellings — which reads as an earlier camera at the same junction, though the council did not say so.

Challenges & appeals — do they work?

Formal representations to the council. Drivers made 25,368 formal challenges over 5 years.

The council's own figures show the share of challenges upheld went from 26% in 2021/22 to 23% in 2025/26 — so a well-grounded challenge is worth making. Leeds upheld between a fifth and a quarter of the challenges put to it in every year — a lower rate than most councils that publish the figure. The exception is 2024/25, when it accepted 434 of 2,525, or 17.2%. It received 6,384 challenges in 2025/26 against 77,999 penalties issued, so roughly one driver in twelve challenges, and around one in fifty gets the penalty cancelled by the council. These are challenges to Leeds itself; the council gave no figures for appeals taken on to the independent tribunal. See our guide to appealing a bus lane PCN for the grounds that win.