
New £70 fines for driving on A259 bus lanes in parts of East Sussex
Motorists driving in bus lanes on two sections of the A259 will now be fined, a local authority has said. East Sussex County Council (ESCC) said it would start enforcing bus lanes in St Leonards and Telscombe Cliffs using cameras, in a bid to improve bus travel. It said a £70 penalty charge notice would be issued to anyone illegally using the bus lanes."Enforcing these bus lanes on such a key coastal route will help to ease congestion and improve air quality by encouraging people to make use of the more reliable bus services," said Claire Dowling, ESCC's lead member for transport.
"The misuse of bus lanes affects journey times for passengers and the reliability of public transport, as well as being frustrating for those motorists who follow the regulations," she said.Enforcement, which started on Tuesday, will be in effect 24 hours a day, ESCC added. The enforceable bus lane in St Leonards runs from the start of Grand Parade to the western most junction with Warrior Square. In Telscombe Cliffs, the bus lane runs along the South Coast Road from the junction of Ambleside Avenue to the border of Brighton & Hove.Bus lanes are identified by road markings and signs, and are also separated from normal traffic lanes by a solid white line.Money from the fines will be used to cover the scheme's costs and reinvested into local transport, said ESCC.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
New Bristol electric buses to cut 'thousands of tonnes' of carbon
A new fleet of electric buses is set to hit the roads in the West of England following a £59m project to upgrade two key bus depots.A total of 98 new buses will soon be operating across nine services in Bristol and North Somerset following the installation of rapid chargers at depots in Hengrove and buses can travel up to 230 miles on one charge, and can be fully charged in just one hour and 15 West of England Mayor Helen Godwin said: "It's better for the environment, and a reliable way to travel, which is what people are asking us for." The first 24 new electric buses are already operating from the Weston-super-Mayor depot, while the Hengrove depot in Bristol is set to get the next year, 258 new electric buses are set to be delivered across the West, with Bath routes being electrified in West of England Combined Authority (Weca) estimates each electric bus will save an average of 75 tonnes of carbon per bus a year, equivalent to taking 54 cars off the whole fleet will reduce global warming gas emissions by the same amount as 14,000 cars produce, it Bus, one of the UK's largest bus operators, provided £50m of the funding, while the remaining £9m came from central government. Local Transport Minister Simon Lightwood officially opened the Hengrove depot on said the government was bringing "cleaner, quieter and smoother bus journeys to Bristol and beyond".Mr Lightwood added: "Better buses help deliver our Plan for Change - creating green jobs, boosting the local economy, and building a more sustainable future."Mayor Godwin was among the guests at the launch. She told the BBC that the buses will provide an overall better experience for passengers."They're better for the environment, they're cleaner in terms of emissions, they're new, they're comfortable, have a lot of passenger capacity and they're more reliable."They're less likely to break down and I'm hopeful that the more of this fleet that we get, we can start to see the difference in the performances of buses in the region." Rob Pymm, acting managing director for First Bus in the West of England, said that as well as being good news for the environment, the buses are also a lot more reliable than diesel-powered vehicles."They have many fewer moving parts, and we have just found they break down less often," he said that by 2026, roughly half the company's bus fleet in the region would be electric. "Having three quarters of a million passengers every day travelling by electric bus - that's pretty exciting news," he added.


Daily Mail
28-05-2025
- Daily Mail
New 'ute and SUV tax' proposed to sting drivers in Australia
By Experts are calling for owners of large SUVs and utes to pay higher registration fees to make up for the damage they do to the environment and roads. SUVs and light commercial vehicles comprise nearly four in every five new vehicles sold in Australia and account for the vast majority of emissions, road wear and take up more space . As recently as 2014, small cars and family sedans dominated the ten most popular cars bought by Australian consumers. Ten years later, large cars comprised nine of the top ten most purchased vehicles in 2024. Milad Haghani (pictured), an associate professor in urban resilience at the University of Melbourne, says it's time for Australia to consider vehicle registration fees based on weight - meaning SUV and ute owners would pay more. 'Bigger cars mean bigger costs for everyone else - it's only fair those costs are reflected in how we price their use of public roads,' he wrote in The Conversation. 'Larger vehicles – no matter how they are powered – generally impose bigger costs on society than smaller cars. 'Large SUVs and utes (if powered by fossil fuels) have a far greater climate impact. On average, a small car emits 2,040 kilograms less carbon dioxide (CO₂) a year than a pickup truck. 'Bigger vehicles also need more space. Standards Australia has proposed making car-parking spaces larger to accommodate the trend to larger cars. Cities such as Paris have introduced higher parking fees for SUVs on these grounds.' He also said larger vehicles slow overall traffic flow. 'For example, they have longer braking distances and other motorists tend to drive further behind them than smaller cars. And at signalised intersections, a large SUV's impact on traffic flows is equal to 1.41 passenger cars,' he said. He also claimed that larger vehicles cause more road wear, which leads to higher road maintenance costs. 'Let's compare a vehicle with an axle weight of 500kg and a vehicle with an axle weight of 1,000kg. The second vehicle doesn't produce double the road damage – it produces 16 times the damage. This phenomenon is known as the fourth power rule .' Mr Haghani believes state-based registration fees have failed to keep up with the trend towards bigger and heavier vehicles. Vehicle registration is calculated in different ways between states and territories. In Victoria, for example, it is calculated primarily based on whether the vehicle was registered in a rural or metropolitan area while, in the ACT, it is derived from the vehicle's emissions. 'I absolutely cannot fathom why registration fee calculations should be so vastly different across states,' Dr Haghani told Daily Mail Australia. 'It's as though we collectively know what the contributing factors are; the reasons we pay rego in the first place, the costs it's meant to offset; but each state has cherry-picked just one of those elements to focus on. Emissions alone don't tell the whole story. Neither does your postcode.' Dr Haghani said a fair vehicle registration model would account not only for the size and weight of the vehicle, but how often it is driven in order to offset road surface damage, emissions and congestion impacts. Adjunct professor in Engineering at the University of Technology, Sydney Robin Smit agreed but added a fair change would go beyond a review of the registration system. 'There are several aspects to consider (e.g. safety, parking space, road damage), but from an emissions perspective it is important to look at the impacts over the whole vehicle lifecycle to ensure a fair comparison is made,' he said. Research suggests Australians are buying bigger cars for multiple reasons including tax incentives, a perception of greater safety and lifestyle. Dr Haghani revived calls to put an end to a luxury car tax loophole that critics claim incentivises roadusers to buy big. Research published last year by the Australia Institute found the Luxury Car Tax, introduced in 2000 to protect the domestic car industry, has the effect of subsiding luxury utes. In 2023 alone, the tax break cost Australians over $250 million in foregone revenue according to the think tank. The tax puts a 33 per cent tax on the value of any imported car over a certain threshold - this financial year it applies to vehicles valued at more than $80,576. However that tax does not apply to commercial vehicles, making it cheaper to buy an imported ute than a similarly priced sedan or small vehicle. 'With this current system, why wouldn't consumer go for a bigger, heavier option?' Dr Haghani said. 'They have already been subject to the commercials that have depicted them as "cool" and "family friendly" and all that, so of course there is every incentive (financial and psychological) to go big (and also match the size of the big cars around you and not feel vulnerable).'


BBC News
24-05-2025
- BBC News
Reading's major roads resurfacing programme restarts
Fifteen sections of a Berkshire town's major roads will be resurfaced over the next six weeks, as part of an £8m local authority work will begin in Northumberland Avenue on Tuesday and conclude in Berkeley Avenue on 5 July, with 13 other road sections resurfaced in between, said Reading Borough authority said it would take the number of major road sections improved so far this year to 30, after 15 other stretches were resurfaced in a previous phase of the programme in March and road improvement scheme also covers smaller residential roads, 100 of which were surfaced between February and April. Road closures and a temporary "no waiting at any time traffic order" will be in place to prevent parking on the roads while the work is carried out, said the council. Residents and businesses directly affected will get advance notice, alerting them to the work, along with on-street closure notices and letters to residents, it said, adding that bus diversions will also be put in Borough Council said its commitment to improving highways had already produced results, including a 39% reduction in the number of pothole reports from the public and improvements to over 800 roads since Rowland, the council's lead for environmental services and community safety, said she hoped residents "are as pleased as we are to see the momentum continuing with our road improvements in Reading".She said: "We recognise that, at times, there are frustrations with road closures but we ask everyone to bear with us as we do our best to get these improvements made as quickly and efficiently as possible."The full schedule of the upcoming works can be found on the council's website. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.