Preston’s controversial bus gate in Corporation Street is raking in more fines than any other bus-only area in the country.
New research, carried out by The Times and Sunday Times, saw data on the penalty notices handed out by local councils for motorists driving in bus-only lanes during 2025.
Lancashire County Council’s bus-gate, which operates 24-hours-a-day on a 60m stretch of road between Marsh Lane and Heatley Street close to the city’s university campus.
Read more: Man gets bus gate fine cancelled after reversing out of Corporation Street
Introduced in June 2024, the Freedom of Information requests by The Times only covers the year of 2025 when 47,176 penalty notices were handed out generating £1.54million. The next highest was Bridge Street West in Manchester with 33,90 fixed penalty notices and £1.13m in fines.
As Blog Preston revealed, in summer 2025, the Corporation Street bus gate had netted more than £2.5million from more than 80,000 penalty notices in the first year of operating. A fixed penalty notice for driving in the bus gate is £70 which reduces to £35 if paid within 21-days of being issued, but late payment of the fine sees it increase to £105.
This total of £2.5m led to calls from Preston’s MP Sir Mark Hendrick for the Reform-led administration in County Hall to scrap it, and further calls from Preston City Council’s Labour administration as well as the opposition Liberal Democrat party.
Earlier this year the Preston Business Improvement District and Lancashire Chamber of Commerce urged the county council to review the bus gate or consider reducing the hours it operates.
The Reform administration, who inherited the bus gate from the previous Conservative regime at the county council, has maintained it is vital for improving bus time reliability and congestion in the city.
A spokesperson for Lancashire County Council told Blog Preston in response to the story in The Times: “The Corporation Street bus gate was introduced in May 2024 to improve bus reliability through a busy part of Preston city centre.
“Feedback from bus operators following the introduction of the bus gate has been positive.
“Any income received is reinvested into Lancashire’s highways network – funding maintenance, safety improvements, and measures that benefit all road users.”
But local businesses, politicians and motorists have consistently argued the signage is poor and unclear and questioned why it needs to operate 24-7. Lancashire County Council has rejected any suggestion the signage is poor or misleading and urged motorists to follow the signs.
During the introduction of the bus gate, from May 2024 when a ‘grace period’ was operated before the cameras were turned on, it was so chaotic down Corporation Street highways staff had to be deployed to physically enforce the bus gate with plastic barriers and at one stage Preston Bus was forced to diverts its buses away from Corporation Street due to the congestion in the bus gate as motorists continued to drive through it.
Opposition councillors have criticised Reform candidates for railing against the bus gate while campaigning in the run up to the 2025 local elections – although the Reform leader, as with pledges not to raise council tax, say these did not form part of a manifesto pledge and were individual candidates wishes rather than party policy. Blog Preston has yet to see physical evidence of the Reform campaign materials, physical or digital, that claimed to support scrapping the bus gate.
But during last month’s full council meeting leader county councillor Stephen Atkinson hinted they may be willing to compromise saying there may be some leniency for first-time offenders and committed to ‘having a conversation’.
The data from The Times also reveals bus-only zones, either bus gates or bus lanes, are worth £75million-a-year to Lancashire County Council from the 15 bus lanes they have across the county, the majority of them in Preston with the New Hall Lane bus lane starting to be enforced in the last month. This places LCC ninth in the table of councils receiving money from bus lane fines.
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