The path will finally be cleared for council enforcement of bus lanes outside London at the end of this month, as seven authorities set up a national appeals service.
Manchester City Council will host the first meeting of the Bus Lane Adjudication Service Joint Committee on 30 June. The other founding members are Bath & North East Somerset , Brighton & Hove, Hampshire, Nottingham, Reading and Sheffield.
The committee will then apply for the Lord Chancellor’s consent to appoint bus lane adjudicators. Manchester, is the lead authority for the National Parking Appeals Service, and has agreed to fill the same role for bus lane enforcement. The bus lane adjudicators will be integrated into the NPAS set-up, although a separate committee is required as shire districts and Welsh councils have not been granted bus lane powers. Manchester and four others are drafting a code of practice intended to set a national standard for bus lane enforcement.
The city council plans to commence enforcement in September. Penalty charges have been pitched at £60 – rather than the lower £40 or £50 levels permitted by legislation – for ‘maximum deterrence’ and consistency with parking fines, Rachel Christie, head of environmental services, advised Manchester’s executive last week. But the city will strive to achieve good levels of compliance prior to the fines taking effect, with a major publicity drive and a two-week warning period, when offenders will only receive warning letters. Officers expect the city’s service to be ‘almost cost-neutral’. Income from penalty notices is predicted to fall from £227,000 this year, to £142,000 next year, based on London boroughs’ experience. A deficit of around £16,000 is anticipated over the two years. Surveys suggest 30-70% of vehicles in Manchester’s bus lanes are there illegally.
Ten ‘hot spots’ have been identified. Those not covered by CCTV cameras will be enforced by a camera-equipped Smart car. Manchester believes the plans will help it achieve a local public service agreement target to secure a 3.6% increase in trips to the city centre by ‘means other than the public car’ by March 2009. Regulations enabling councils to take up their new powers under the Transport Act 2000 came into force in November last year.
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