A BUS gate in Colchester has made Essex County Council hundreds of thousands of pounds by fining drivers, according to a Freedom of Information request (FOI).

North Hill, which had a bus gate installed in 2013, has made £620,369 in the past four years from 2018 to 2021, including a total of £241,298 in 2018 alone.

It means the bus gate has raked in an average of £155,092 annually in penalty charge notices.

The FOI requests were submitted to Essex County Council by a 73-year-old who was left aggrieved after she was fined £30 for driving through the North Hill bus gate.

Though Angela Webster’s appeal was rejected, she appealed the decision at the traffic penalty tribunal, who upheld her complaint and ordered she be given a full refund.

Mrs Webster explained her husband, Robert Webster, came up with the idea of submitting the FOI requests because they reckoned other drivers had also been caught out.

She said: “It was actually my husband’s idea – when we saw the response, we were gobsmacked.

“I was also delighted because it gave us more of a case because actually it was a bit of vindication that this wasn’t fair.”

"Bus gates are not about income"

A spokesman for Essex County Council said an ideal outcome would be for as few PCNs to be dealt out as possible as a result of bus lane violations.

He said: "Bus gates are not about income - success for the Council would be to issue no fines at all, because that would be an indication that people were being more thoughtful about their journeys and the routes they take.

"All money generated by PCNs for bus gate misuse in Essex is ring-fenced and reinvested to help improve public transport, roads and the transport network across the county."