Southwark Council has been forced to hand back £500,000 to thousands of motorists who were unlawfully fined for driving in bus lanes across the borough.
The council issued 10,000 penalty charge notices (PCNs) between February and July 2025 to cars caught driving on bus lanes by CCTV cameras.
The fines were only uncovered when Phillip Morgan, a member of the Free Traffic Legal Advice forum, submitted an Freedom of Information request (FOI) after noticing “the incorrect template was copied over the bus lane template”, leading the council to notice the “administrative error”.
Morgan told the Sunday Telegraph it was one of the “worst examples of administrative incompetence” he had ever encountered.
He said: “The question must be asked: how much do Southwark council taxpayers pay for this incompetence and how much does it cost to send out by post faulty tickets and equally faulty notices of rejection?”
Cllr Victor Chamberlain, leader of the Southwark Liberal Democrats, also accused the council of ‘incompetence’, stating: “Southwark Labour has been caught out again — illegally fining thousands of drivers and wasting huge sums of money.
“This is not just an embarrassing mistake, it’s yet another example of incompetence from a Council that cannot get the basics right. Residents are paying the price for this chaos and they deserve so much better from their local authority.”
Southwark Council said it “will recover the full cost of the refunds from the contractors.”
It comes after the council announced in January that it would be refunding over £100,000 to drivers fined for using a Rotherhithe bus lane that did not legally exist for months.
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In October 2024 the News revealed that motorists were being fined for driving down the bus lane on Lower Road – even though the Traffic Management Order for the lane expired in May 2024.
Without a valid TMO, the bus lane legally ceased to exist.
The discovery, which the council put down to an ‘administrative error’, was brought to light after a local business owner wanted to contest his fine.
Responding to the recent error, James McAsh, the council’s cabinet member for Clean Air, Streets and Waste, said: “Between February and June this year, an administrative error by one of our contractors led to some bus lane penalty notices being issued incorrectly. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.
“All affected motorists will receive refunds, and any unpaid notices will be cancelled. We have reviewed all other notices and found no further issues. We are also strengthening our checks with contractors to make sure this does not happen again.
“The council will recover the full cost of the refunds from the contractors.”
