Have your say on bus lane enforcement at Weedon Road / St James’ Road, Northampton

Feedback updated 22 Jun 2022

We asked

We asked residents, commuters to Northampton and local stakeholders for their views on what hours the bus lane in St James should operate and whether the Council should continue to enforce these hours.

You said

The key headlines from the consultation were as follows:

2725 responses were received.

48% did not agree with enforcement;

50% said they either agreed with maintaining enforcement, or agreed in some circumstances;

Of those who responded in favour of enforcement continuing, 62% said that this should be limited 7.30-9.30am only.

Many other suggestions relating to enforcement times were made (in a free text field) with a common theme being evening ‘rush hour’ enforcement in addition to mornings;

The majority of respondents would not support enforcement if we used the income to support highways and transport services;

A common suggestion was to allow private hire taxis to use the bus lane as well as hackney carriages.

Please see here for Decision Details

We did

We have changed the operation of the bus lane to the morning peak only (07.30am – 09.30am) and the traffic regulation order has been amended to also permit private hire taxis and scooters to use the bus lane.

Enforcement utilising the camera in its current location has ceased.

Overview

West Northamptonshire Council is seeking views on its Bus Lane Enforcement Scheme as part of a review of the arrangements for Northampton Town.

We would like to hear your views about current enforcement in the Weedon Road / St James’ Road area of Northampton.

The purpose of the bus lane and enforcement is to ensure that bus services run to time and provide an alternative to car travel, thereby reducing congestion and improving choice. It also allows taxis, cyclists and scooters to access at all times. There are currently almost 10,000 incidents of drivers using the bus lane and have been subject to a fine.

As part of the review, the Council wants to ensure that it gets the balance right for everyone, whether they’re a car driver, a bus passenger or a cyclist.

In particular, we want to hear views on whether we should:

reduce the enforcement hours to a minimum period from 7:30am to 9:30am (the original hours which were in operation until February 2021)
reduce the enforcement hours to 7am to 7pm (this is when we have the most bus services operating and could experience difficulties due to the volume of traffic)
leave the enforcement hours as they currently operate, 24 hours and 7 days a week (which is the current operational hours)

The consultation is open to all residents, stakeholders and people representing organisations.

This consultation will run from Wednesday 6 October to midnight on Tuesday 2 November 2021.

Have your say

You can tell us your views on bus lane enforcement in Weedon Road / St James’ Road area of Northampton by completing this survey – using the link below.

You do not have to answer all of the questions or give us your feedback on every section. If you do not wish to answer a question or give feedback on a specific section, then you can skip those questions and section.

You can email or send your comments in by post using the contact details below.

If you have any queries, comments or would like a copy of this survey in another format, you can contact us by email or post. Our contact details are as follows:

Email address: Parkingenquiries@kierwsp.co.uk

Postal address:

Northampton Bus Lane Enforcement Scheme Review 2021
West Northamptonshire Council
One Angel Square
Angel Street
Northampton
NN1 1ED

What happens next

Once the consultation closes, we will collate all the feedback received and present this information to the West Northamptonshire Council Cabinet, most likely in December 2021.

Your feedback will be part of a report with many other people’s feedback, so you will not be personally identified.

Councillors will consider this information as part of their review and will subsequently make further decisions about bus lane / bus street enforcement in Northampton.

We will share the feedback received and how this has helped to shape our services in due course. Details of this will be published on our ‘We asked, you said, we did’ web page.

For information about how consultation and engagement responses are managed, please see the consultation and engagement privacy notice.

Interests

Consultations
Parking, roads and transport

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