Judges to decide on legality of bus lanes

A battle to decide what legally constitutes a bus lane is to be fought out at the High Court in a case sparked by a fine issued to a motorist in Oxford.

A judge ordered an urgent hearing of a test case after being told that cases of drivers being fined for entering bus lanes, which may not officially be bus lanes, are "piling up" and the law needed swift clarification.

Shaun Duffy received a £60 fixed-penalty notice for allegedly driving in a bus lane in Oxford High Street in July last year.

Mr Duffy, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, successfully appealed to the bus lane adjudicator, who ruled that Oxfordshire County Council's system is flawed and ordered the fine to be cancelled.

The council appealed to the chief bus lane adjudicator for England, whose remit covers all bus lanes in the country outside London, but the adjudicator also ruled against the council, saying the area declared a bus lane is "not a bus lane" within the meaning of the Transport Act 2000.

At the heart of the case is a dispute over what are the correct signs and traffic regulations which make a bus lane a bus lane and allow trespassing drivers to be penalised.

The council collected £635,435 in fines in the first year of camera enforcement in Oxford High Street.

The case is important because similar traffic regulation schemes, using similar signs to those in Oxford, are also in use in other cities and towns around the country.

Mr Justice Blake, sitting at the High Court in London, gave the county council permission to challenge the chief adjudicator's decision, made in April, in judicial review proceedings.

"Having read the papers, I have concluded there is an arguable case that there may have been a material error of law in the chief adjudicator's decision," he said.