‘We were issued with multiple Mill Road bridge fines despite having a Blue Badge exemption’

A Blue Badge holder with severe arthritis was bombarded with penalty charge notices for using Mill Road bridge bus gate – despite having an exemption for her car issued by the same authority that was sending the fines.

Ian Williams returned to his home off the city’s Perne Road last month after a couple of weeks away to find letters from Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) had been piling up.

And despite Ian, the registered vehicle owner, contacting the council to explain that it had issued his wife Patricia with a Mill Road bus gate Blue Badge exemption last November, the letters with penalty charge notices (PCN) relating to her travel along Mill Road kept arriving.

Ian said: “My wife had gone to the trouble of registering her Blue Badge with the appropriate county council authority on 11 November, 2024, and was granted an exemption with an expiry date of 17 July, 2027.

“Since then she has been hounded with a string of penalty notices which is most distressing for a woman suffering from severe arthritis and awaiting a hospital appointment to provide her with some mobility again.

Patricia, a retired Addenbrookes’ employee, added: “It worries me that other vulnerable registered Blue Badge holders might also be erroneously harassed."

A Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) was agreed last year by councillors to close the bridge to traffic except buses, pedestrians, cyclists, emergency services, taxis and Blue Badge holders’ registered vehicles. Any unregistered vehicle crossing the bridge would be fined £70, with enforcement via Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR) cameras.

The TRO was enforceable since December 2024, but until the end of January drivers who were not exempt from the restrictions were only warned, with civil parking enforcement officers monitoring use of the bridge and signs on display. From the start of February, a further warning period came into force during which drivers of non-exempt vehicles received warning notices.

After works to fix a burst water main on Mill Road, the bridge reopened on 13 March with fines being issued henceforth to non-exempt vehicles.

Ian said: “When the first warning PCN for my wife arrived in February, I had tried to resolve the situation by using the CCC online system. However, because it was just a warning notice, the online system would not allow me to input any explanatory information.

“I then tried the phone number supplied but this was answered by an automated message sending me back to the online system with no option of talking to a human. Catch 22?

“At the very least this stream of erroneous first-class letters is a continuing waste of council taxpayers’ money and time. More seriously, we are afraid that this organisation, which clearly is chaotic in its operation, may call in the bailiffs or leave me with a poor credit rating thus causing me endless later hassle in getting this credit rating rectified.

“The county council is meant to be the authority looking after the interests of the public – heaven help us.”

Ian, a semi-retired land use and transport planning consultant, added: “The irony is that because I have always cycled to the city centre to avoid suffering the ubiquitous Cambridge congestion and car parking issues, I personally was a fan of the bridge closure due to its reduction in Mill Road car traffic making it safer for us cyclists. Little did I know its real impacts.”

A county council spokesperson said: “We have been in contact with Mr Williams and apologised. There was a processing error in the initial set-up, all the penalty charge notices have been cancelled, and the vehicle is on the authorised user list for Mill Road bridge bus gate.”