Gareth Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Johnson on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many penalty charge notices have been (a) issued to motorists and (b) subsequently withdrawn or successfully appealed since the inception of the Dart Charge scheme.
Andrew Jones
From the introduction of Dart Charge on 30 November 2014 to the end of March 2016 3,392,215 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) have been issued for non-payment of the road user charge.
Highways England has taken a balanced approach to enforcement of Dart Charge by being clear to drivers that they need to pay the charge and giving them every opportunity to do so. As part of this approach the first PCN issued for each vehicle includes a warning letter giving the registered keeper an extra 14 days to pay their original road user charge for use of the crossing (and any additional road user charges accrued by the end of the 14 days) without penalty. In total 1,490,319 PCNs have been cancelled due to drivers paying the outstanding road user charges following receipt of a warning letter.
In addition a further 86,195 PCNs have been cancelled following representation or appeal and 354,201 PCNs cancelled for other reasons including payment errors made by customers or early system issues which have since been addressed.
