Disclosure Log

FOI traffic (FOI/7730)

Message from Nottinghamshire County Council - 23 April 2026

Dear *********,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION REFERENCE FOI/7730

Thank you for your request for information relating to FOI traffic.

We are now able to provide the following information:

The number of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued for:
Bus lane contraventions –
2023 – 13029
2024 – 14261
2025 - 13989
Moving traffic contraventions –
Nottinghamshire County Council did not enforce moving traffic contraventions in 2023, 2024 or 2025.
Yellow box junction contraventions –
Yellow box junctions fall under moving traffic contraventions which the Council did not enforce in 2023, 2024 or 2025.
No entry / restricted access contraventions –
N/A

The number of cases where motorists stated that they entered a bus lane committed a moving traffic contravention in order to allow an emergency vehicle to pass. Of those identified in Question 2:
The number where the PCN was cancelled
The number where the PCN was upheld
The number that proceeded to appeal
Of those that proceeded to appeal:
The number allowed
The number refused
The reason for appeal is not recorded separately and can only be established by reviewing each case separately which would exceed cost limits and the 18 hour time limit, and is therefore exempt please see below.

Please provide any policies, guidance, internal documentation relating to motorists entering bus lanes committing moving traffic contraventions in order to allow emergency vehicles to pass.
Please confirm whether your authority has any formal informal policy regarding discretion where motorists enter bus lanes commit contraventions to allow emergency vehicles to pass.
Please provide details of any cases where motorists successfully challenged enforcement on the basis of allowing an emergency vehicle to pass.
If any part of this request exceeds cost limits, please provide advice and assistance under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act to refine the request.
There are no formal policies on this. PCNs issued by ANPR are reviewed by staff before issuing and if there is evidence of evasive action on the footage the PCN would not be issued. Discretion can always be applied in the back office, and each case is considered on its own merits based on the evidence available. There is also no specific ground for acceptance based on emergency vehicles, so we have no independent record of any that have been accepted for this.

The authority does not record the reason for entering a bus lane, or the reason for appeal, in a way that would allow the requested information to be identified and extracted without reviewing individual case files. In order to determine:

the number of cases where motorists stated they entered a bus lane to allow an emergency vehicle to pass;
how many of those Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) were cancelled or upheld;
how many proceeded to appeal; and
of those appeals, how many were allowed or refused,

it would be necessary to manually review each relevant case record.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. For local authorities, the appropriate limit is £450, which represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2½ working days (18 hours) in determining whether the information is held, and in locating, retrieving, and extracting it.

Given the volume of individual records involved and the manual effort required to review them to establish the information requested, compliance with your request would exceed this limit. Therefore, we are exempting question 2 under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We trust this now satisfies your request and that you find this information to be helpful, however if you are unhappy with the way in which your request has been handled, then please email us at [email protected] quoting the reference FOI/7730 and we will be happy to review your request

For future reference, Nottinghamshire County Council regularly publishes previous FOI requests and answers on its website, under Disclosure logs, that may provide details relating to your query. (see link) Your privacy: we use your personal information such as name and address so that we can comply with our legal obligations to respond to FOI requests. For further details about the use of information about you, please see the information handling privacy notice on our website at https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/4323566/informationgovernanceandinformationrightsprivacynotice.pdf

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Requests should be submitted within 40 working days of the date of receipt of the response to your original request and should be addressed to: Complaints and Information Team, Nottinghamshire County Council, County Hall, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, NOTTINGHAM, NG2 7QP or [email protected].

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, WILMSLOW, SK9 5AF or https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/global-content/privacy