A tribunal has cancelled a £160 fine issued at the Putney Embankment turning off Lower Richmond Road, ruling that Wandsworth Council’s two signs there contradict each other.
One sign, white, marks a pedestrian and cycle zone that motor vehicles may not enter. The other, blue, is the sign for a one-way road on which cycles may ride in both directions. “The signs are contradictory,” the adjudicator, Henry Michael Greenslade, wrote in his decision of 14 September.
The council has issued 1,081 penalty notices at the junction since the zone opened in 2024. This year’s figure covers four types of offence, including no entry and a banned right turn, so not every notice was necessarily for the no-motor-vehicles rule.
The council is also adding cameras to the Embankment. A paper going to the council’s Cabinet on 12 October lists enforcement of the “existing ‘No Motor Vehicles’ restriction on Putney Embankment” as due this month. The council has not said publicly which stretch that covers, whether it will change the signs first, or whether it will look again at the notices already issued.
What the tribunal decided
The driver who appealed had driven in from Lower Richmond Road on the morning of 20 December last year. He told the tribunal that the white sign said “pedestrian zone”, but the blue sign above it contradicted this by showing oncoming vehicles.
The adjudicator identified both signs by their numbers in the national rules on road signs: Diagram 618.3C for the white sign, Diagram 960.2 for the blue one. Wandsworth did not attend the hearing and was not represented.
The council’s case, as the decision records it, was that motor vehicles are banned in either direction, with exceptions for highway maintenance and for access to Port of London Authority and Thames Tideway sites. Those vehicles, and cycles, must follow the one-way signs. No exceptions are shown on the white sign itself.
Drivers must check the signs and obey them, the adjudicator noted. “However, it is also the responsibility of the Enforcement Authority to ensure that restrictions and prohibitions are clearly signed,” he wrote. He was not satisfied that the signs were clear enough “on this particular occasion”, and allowed the appeal.
So does this mean that all 1,081 penalty notices need to be refunded? No, not necessarily. First, it is on the individual to challenge the decision against them, and second, even if they do, an adjudicator is not bound by another’s decision, although they will of course take it into consideration.
The decision covers one notice, and every appeal turns on its own evidence. Of the 479 notices issued this year up to 10 August, 97 drew a challenge or a letter to the council, and 13 were cancelled.
In force for two years
The zone itself runs from Lower Richmond Road to Thames Place. It began as a trial after works for the Waterman’s Green scheme closed the road, and the council consulted on banning cars from November 2023 to May 2024. The consultation page said occasional vehicle access would remain for the slipway, the Thames Tideway structure, the river taxi jetty and highway maintenance.
The zone came into force on 17 May 2024. The first penalty notice followed on 20 June. The council issued 25 that year, then 577 in 2025.
The zone and its first two years of enforcement came under the previous Labour administration. The new cameras are part of the Conservative administration’s plan for the Putney Bridge junction, announced in July, and the enforcement is listed in a paper presented by Cllr Nick Austin, the Cabinet Member for Transport. The paper passed the council’s transport committee last week.
Before the May election, the West Putney Conservatives’ leaflet, on which Cllr Austin stood, promised to “Protect residents from… money grabbing cameras restricting access”.
The Embankment cameras were announced by his predecessor, Daniel Hamilton, who resigned from the cabinet in July. Cllr Austin now holds the transport brief.
Councils outside London work to government guidance, which says camera enforcement should not start where offences could be avoided by reasonable improvements to the signs. It says drivers caught for the first time at a new camera site should get a warning letter, not a fine, for six months. And where an adjudicator criticises a council’s signs, the council should review them and consider applying the decision to other cases.
That guidance does not cover London boroughs, which have enforced moving traffic offences by camera for many years. In London it asks for first-time warning letters only for a few newer offences involving cycle lanes, cycle routes and roads where buses are banned.
Cabinet is due to decide on the paper on 12 October. Four appeals against notices issued at the junction this year were still waiting for a decision when the council last reported on them, on 26 August.
If you were fined at this junction
- A notice you have not paid yet: you can make a formal challenge to the council within 28 days. How to challenge a moving traffic penalty notice. If the council rejects it, you can appeal to London Tribunals.
- About the tribunal: decisions are published on London Tribunals’ public register. Adjudicators are not bound by each other’s decisions, so each appeal is decided on its own evidence.
- To ask for the signs to be reviewed: write to the Thamesfield councillors, Robert Morritt, Leader of the Council, Ethan Brooks and Salvatore Murtas, and to Cllr Nick Austin, Cabinet Member for Transport. Cabinet meets on 12 October.
- Been fined here? Tell us at news@putney.news.
Given that for months the temporary no parking signs used the string of letters ‘podestrian’ as if it were a word, I’m not surprised the council could not get road signs clear.