How Hammersmith and Fulham council’s ‘money box’ made £2.7m from poor motorists in one year
THE roads leading out of West London were one of the favourite hunting grounds of 18th century highwayman Dick Turpin.
But he did not operate with anywhere near as much efficiency as the number plate recognition cameras employed by Hammersmith and Fulham Council to police its Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Statistics from a Freedom of Information request have just revealed that last year one single LTN raised nearly £1million from drivers every month.
There were 341,000 motorists caught in the first 11 months of last year — by just five cameras.
Does anyone really believe that number of drivers deliberately set out to break the rules?
More likely, most failed to understand confusing and inadequate signage.
The South Fulham LTN is far from the only way Hammersmith and Fulham Council is squeezing revenue out of motorists.
Don’t have a chance
Close to the LTN is Hammersmith’s infamous “money box”, where cameras capture motorists who get caught in a box junction — something which many have complained is unavoidable, because a few yards further on is a second set of traffic lights.
If those lights change when you are already in the yellow box, you don’t have a chance.
In one year alone it raised £2.7million.
As with other councils, Hammersmith and Fulham has always tried to claim that its traffic cameras are not about raising revenue, only about keeping traffic flowing and its residential streets safe and quiet.
That was exposed by a BBC Panorama programme in 2013 in which a council employee was secretly caught bragging to his staff: “Another record month, guys, well done.”
Of course these traffic cameras are about raising revenue.
Local authorities have worked out that jacking up council tax tends to be unpopular and so are desperately trying to raise revenue in other ways.
Not that the rush of traffic fines has saved us from council tax rises this year — the average bill increased by 5.1 per cent yesterday.
As the RAC claimed last month in a detailed examination of box junctions, many are much larger than they need to be in order to keep traffic flowing.
Some are so long that a motorist driving into the box can’t possibly see, or predict, whether they will be able to reach the other side without being stopped in traffic.
The idea that these kinds of traps improve road safety is absurd.
You only have to watch the effect on drivers as they accelerate through junctions in order to try to reach a free space on the other side before someone else.
Endless cameras turn driving on city streets from a relaxing experience to a nerve-racking adventure.
Duty towards residents
They might reduce traffic, but only by frightening motorists off the streets.
Unfortunately, there are a great number of motorists, from tradespeople to delivery drivers to nurses and carers, who work irregular hours — when public transport is not available — who simply cannot avoid driving in our cities.
Town halls once brimmed with civic pride.
They had a sense of duty towards their residents.
Yet they have descended into money-grabbing operations as rapacious as any cowboy clamping firm.
Indeed, many councils like to hide behind private companies they employ to issue tickets on their behalf — using incentive structures which encourage them to issue as many fines as they can.
The rot seemed to set in when council clerks started calling themselves “chief executives” and demanding salaries and bonuses to match.
Their attempt to pose as entrepreneurs is laughable when you look at how many of them have gone bust as a result of foolish investments in commercial property or trying to set up their own energy companies.
Few council chiefs would survive a week in the real world of business.
They would quickly be driven out by angry shareholders who feared losing their own investments.
But we should not ignore the role of central government in all this.
Until two years ago it was only councils in London and Cardiff that had the power to fine motorists for minor traffic violations, such as stopping in a box junction or undertaking a banned U-turn.
Before that, only the police could.
Then the Government extended the power to all councils in England and Wales, leading to an explosion in fines.
Ill feeling
At the time, transport minister Baroness Vere described the change in the rules as the “ethos of localism”.
No it wasn’t — it was a disgraceful abandonment of ordinary taxpayers to the greed of local government officials.
It is pretty hollow now to hear Rishi Sunak trying to claim the Government is the motorist’s friend.
Nor, by the way, is the Government much of a friend of people who use public transport.
It increased the penalty fares that rail companies can charge passengers caught with minor ticketing irregularities from £20 to £100.
This was in spite of ample evidence that rail companies are abusing their power by fining people simply for misunderstanding the labyrinthian ticketing system.
No one likes paying taxes, but it creates even more ill feeling when councils pounce on us with fines for failing to understand their traffic systems, or being trapped in junctions that could not be better designed to catch us out.
This shadowy form of revenue collection is a disgrace.