A council whose Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) were ruled unlawful has refunded just 4 per cent of the millions it took from drivers in fines, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Croydon Council was forced to withdraw all six of its zones in March after a High Court judge said they were in place mainly to make money.
But almost six months on, the council has refunded just £520,951 of the more than £13million it fined drivers across two years, documents released to the Mail showed.
LTNs are used to reduce traffic in residential areas using cameras, planters or lockable bollards to stop cars passing through.
But Croydon’s schemes were quashed after Mr Justice Pepperall said he was satisfied that ‘the dominant purpose’ of making the zones permanent after a trial period was ‘the need to safeguard the revenue raised by enforcement’.
Figures obtained by the Mail showed the council made £7,210,328.18 from the LTNs between March 2024 and February 2026.
And newly-released details of a trial period for candidate LTNs, tested from November 2023 to March 2024, showed an extra £5,828,136 filled council coffers in that time, bringing the total to more than £13million.
Raking in an average of £300,000 each month, the council’s highest single-month receipt totalled more than £480,000 from just 11km (6.8 miles) of road.
One of Croydon’s six Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, which have all now been withdrawn after a High Court ruling
And in the trial period the council generated almost £250,000 from a single LTN – the Derby Road junction with Clarendon Road – in just one month.
In April the council said motorists would be able to claim refunds from its website but did not commit to ensuring the full revenue generated from the schemes would be returned.
Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden said: ‘Labour’s low traffic neighbourhoods in Croydon were unlawful, and it was drivers who paid for them.
‘The previous Conservative Government put in clear guidance saying councils must listen to local people and keep these schemes under proper review. Labour ditched that guidance and imposed these schemes with Sadiq Khan’s backing.
‘Croydon’s Conservative mayor scrapped all six zones the moment the High Court ruled. Every driver who paid a penalty in those zones should put in a claim, and I would encourage them to do so today.’
Council figures showed drivers had submitted 6,167 applications for refunds so far.
The council’s Conservative mayor, Jason Perry, said: ‘Richard is absolutely right. These deeply unpopular schemes were imposed by Croydon’s previous Labour administration in 2020 with Sadiq Khan’s backing, despite the concerns of residents and businesses.
‘I inherited them alongside a council Labour had bankrupted, with millions of pounds in anticipated fine income already built into its finances. I worked to reduce their impact by removing physical barriers and introducing free resident permits.
‘When the High Court ruled, I acted immediately: accepting the judgment, refusing to pursue a lengthy appeal and scrapped all six schemes.
‘I welcome Richard’s support in encouraging every eligible motorist to submit a refund claim. Labour treated Croydon’s drivers as a cash cow; we have put residents first, removed these schemes and ensured they will never return whilst I am Mayor.’
Karen Lawrence, who spearheaded the original legal action, previously told the Mail: ‘These closures had such a big impact on my movement around Croydon. I am so glad the courts vindicated what we all thought these were truly about… money.’
Residents’ tales of woe included being hounded by debt collectors for hundreds of pounds with little help from the council.
Roger Minnis’s daughter told the Mail her father had been recovering from abdominal surgery when he rushed to an urgent GP appointment and was hit with a fine.
Mr Minnis’s daughter said the council’s behaviour had been ‘absolutely disgusting’ after she was hounded by an ‘aggressive’ and ‘threatening’ debt collection agency while trying to resolve her father’s fine.
LTNs such as that pictured in north London use planters and bollards to block cars from using residential streets
The resident group Open Our Roads previously said it was ‘shocked’ by the full extent of Croydon’s revenue-raising from the LTNs.
A spokesman said: ‘The figures quoted suggest they were not performing their stated objectives, given the high level of enforcement revenue, but we are pleased the current administration has swiftly put processes in place to refund the fines wrongfully taken.’
The group said it had received more than a thousand messages of thanks from the community but added LTNs in other boroughs had prompted more tales of ‘despair’ amid the ‘eye-watering sums’ being raised by councils.
In March’s High Court judgment, Mr Justice Pepperall cited evidence of Mr Perry criticising the schemes while in opposition.
Mr Perry said he would like to remove all LTNs on his first day in office.
But after he was elected in May 2022 the judge wrote that Mr Perry’s view changed because of financial considerations.
The court’s judgment said Mr Perry ‘didn’t think he was in a position to remove the schemes because the previous [Labour] administration had predicated their budgets on assumed income from the schemes’.
Mr Perry later said: ‘I did not at any point say that I would remove all the [LTNs] because I just knew it was not a pledge that I could uphold… any future schemes coming forward should not be based on fining residents in order to achieve it.’
Croydon Council has effectively declared bankruptcy three times since 2020, the same year it trialled LTNs before making them permanent in 2024.
Last year the Labour Government quietly dropped plans to limit the introduction of LTNs and 20mph zones in a move dubbed a ‘secret war on drivers’.
The reforms, drawn up by the Tories, would have curbed councils’ power to restrict traffic and impose ‘unfair’ fines and parking charges.
But ministers dismissed the proposals saying they ‘would have made no positive difference for drivers’.
