Reading fines blunder will cost council around £360,000

Reading Borough Council has admitted that  6,136 fines need to be refunded due to a legal error in the making of traffic regulation orders (TROs) which govern the rules of the road.

A staff member discovered a fault with a TRO on the East Reading red route, which led to a wider investigation that discovered other legal orders that were incorrect.

The council is soon set to refund people who were issued penalty charge notices (PCNs).

In an interview, Jackie Yates, the chief executive of the council said that it is expected to pay out around £360,000 to those who paid their fines.

She said: "We estimate including interest, it will cost to the council £360,000 and the money will have to come from the council's reserves, so we will effectively not have that money to spend on anything else."

Jackie Yates, the chief executive of Reading Borough Council. (Image: James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporting Service)

Council officers are currently working on a scheme to refund those who were wrongly fined. The scheme needs to be approved at a full council meeting on Tuesday, October 15.

Councillors are expected to approve the scheme which then go live on Wednesday, October 16.

Mrs Yates added: "There is a report which sets out in detail what has happened, what the refund process will be for motorists, what the action plan is that officers are putting in place to ensure this doesn't happen again, and detail of those particular areas where drivers have been affected and are eligible for a refund."

The fines will not be automatically refunded, with most of those wrongly penalised needing to apply for a refund on a dedicated webpage.

Mrs Yates explained: "Because some of these particular issues date back to 2013, we don't necessarily have people's up-to-date addresses, we don't necessarily have people's up-to-date bank details.

"The majority of the PCNS do relate to a section of the East Reading red routes, but there are errors that occurred on others and but they are of a lesser number of PCNS that were issued."

A red route in Reading, which bans vehicles stopping at any time. (Image: Reading Borough Council)

However, the council does have the contact details of around 150 people who were prosecuted for not paying the fines.

The council will write to these people directly to inform them.

Mrs Yates said: "There were unfortunately a small number of motorists who had enforcement action taken against because they didn't pay the PCN.

"Clearly for those individuals we do have the details and we will be writing to them to let them know that they are eligible for a refund and what we will be paying them."

Apologising, Mrs Yates added: "Frankly, it is very damaging reputationally, it's very difficult."

The places where drivers have been incorrectly fined are:

• Sections of Kings Road and Wokingham Road, between January 2018 and March 2024
• Permit parking schemes in Waldeck Street and Swainstone Road, between March 2016 and June 2024
• The red route between Tilehurst and West Reading, for a seven-day period in May 2018
• The verge and footway parking ban area in Southcote, between August 2015 and June 2024
• The verge and footway parking ban area in Kentwood and Tilehurst, between November 2013 and June 2024.

On what actions the council will be taking following the blunder, Ms Yates said: "We're looking at our processes and our systems. The process is very manual at the moment it's a very technical and detailed procedure.

There are 240 TRO's across the borough, we are keen to digitise that to make sure that things are more streamlined in the future.

"We'll be looking at the culture, why was it that we didn't know about this issue, earlier, why didn't staff come forward before now, so there are a number of angles that we are looking to investigate and put right. "

The interview took place on Monday, October 7.