Time to pay back Salter's Hill fines

11:32am Friday 4th July 2008

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The Streatham Guardian is calling on Lambeth Council to pay back thousands of pounds in fines handed to motorists at a flawed money-spinning junction, after another council vowed to reimburse all drivers it had fined in a similar way.

A massive 6,286 penalty notices were handed out in just 128 days last year to drivers who had supposedly failed to give way correctly at the Salter's Hill junction in Upper Norwood.

But despite a Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PaTas) adjudicator ruling the junction was flawed, Lambeth has flatly refused to reimburse everyone fined there.

This is equivalent to more than £300,000 if each motorist stumped up the reduced £50 fine offered to those paying early.

Yet Sheffield Council announced last month it would give everyone it had fined for breaking rules at "tram gates" it had installed in the city their money back.

Like Lambeth, the council had been told by an adjudicator the gates were flawed, and had inadequate signage.

But unlike Lambeth, Sheffield decided to admit its mistake and pay back everyone who writes to claim their money, in a move which could cost it £350,000.

Former Beulah Hill resident Jonathan Greatorex, who successfully appealed his Salter's Hill fine, said: "Lambeth needs to do the right thing. It must acknowledge that the money gained through that junction was not gained honestly.

"If one of the council's residents acted like this they would call it fraud, but the council think because of who it is it can get away with it."

He said both cases were identical because an adjudicator had ruled the junction - or tram gate - itself was flawed, not just that the individual fine was wrong, and therefore everyone was likely to have been wrongly penalised.

Sheila Ranger, deputy director of motoring watchdog RAC Foundation, said that morally Lambeth Council should pay back everyone at the junction, but she did not imagine it would because legally it was not obliged to.

She said: "When people pay the fine they admit liability, so it then becomes difficult to demand money back because you have admitted making a mistake.

"It's terrible really. People are put in a difficult position because they know if they don't appeal they only pay half of the fine. Often people just accept their fate even though they know they were wrongly fined."

A Lambeth Council spokesman said it would not reimburse everyone because although the council had made some improvements to the layout and signage at the junction, it did not accept that there were any shortcomings with its design that would have caused a large number of motorists to be ticketed unfairly.

He added: "We always encourage anyone who believes they have been given a ticket unfairly to appeal."