Cabinet approved cameras at ten Northampton junctions on 15 September: six months of warnings first, then £70 fines. Not one site had majority support.
Ten more Northampton junctions will be watched by enforcement cameras. West Northamptonshire Council’s Cabinet confirmed its support for the programme and for the ten locations at its meeting on Tuesday 15 September. Drivers caught making a banned turn, stopping in a yellow box or going the wrong way will eventually get a £70 penalty by post. (Cabinet decisions, 15 September 2026)
Updated 16 September 2026 with the Cabinet decision. This article originally said the meeting was at One Angel Square; it was held at The Forum in Towcester.
There is a grace period. For the first six months after a camera goes live, a first offence at that camera brings a warning notice rather than a fine.
The council’s own consultation on the sites tells a less comfortable story than the press release does. Of 419 people who responded, not one of the thirteen locations put to them attracted majority support. At most of the ten now recommended, more people objected than agreed.
The ten locations
The report Cabinet agreed names ten sites. The council’s news release sets out exactly where each camera would sit.
Banned turns
- Upton Valley Way East, at the junction with Banbury Lane
- Collingwood Road, at the junction with St Matthew’s Parade
- Abington Square, the right turn onto the Wellingborough Road side, near the Charles Bradlaugh statue
Yellow box junctions
- St Peter’s Way, at the junction with Weston Wharf
- Cliftonville Road, at the entrance to the hospital
- Harborough Road, two sites: the Cock Hotel junction and the junction with the A5095
- Weedon Road, at the junction with Spencer Bridge Road
- Mere Way, opposite the fire station and at the Wootton Hall Park junction
No entry and one-way
- St Giles’ Square, between Wood Hill and Derngate
The Mere Way sites are there because of blue-light access. The consultation drew strong support for keeping the approaches to the fire and ambulance station clear. (West Northamptonshire Council, 8 September 2026)
Not one site had majority backing
The public consultation ran from 24 November 2025 to 4 January 2026 and covered thirteen possible locations. It drew 419 responses, 396 of them from people who live in West Northamptonshire.
The council’s summary of those responses, published as Appendix A to the Cabinet report, is blunt about the result. “Overall, support varied between locations, and no site reached a majority in favour,” it says. The strongest backing anywhere was 44 per cent, at St Giles’ Square.
| Location | Restriction | Yes | No | Not sure | Opposed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weedon Road | Yellow box | 72 | 129 | 20 | 58.4% |
| Harborough Rd & Mill Lane | Yellow box | 75 | 129 | 19 | 57.8% |
| Cliftonville Road | Yellow box | 88 | 133 | 14 | 56.6% |
| St Peter's Way | Yellow box | 87 | 132 | 16 | 56.2% |
| Harborough Road | Yellow box | 81 | 130 | 21 | 56.0% |
| Upton Valley Way East | No right turn | 102 | 148 | 27 | 53.4% |
| Mere Way | Yellow box | 100 | 122 | 13 | 51.9% |
| Abington Square | No right turn | 100 | 120 | 17 | 50.6% |
| Collingwood Road | No right turn | 88 | 106 | 30 | 47.3% |
| St Giles' Square | No entry, one way | 98 | 103 | 22 | 46.2% |
The report does not dispute any of that. It says the consultation “showed a general level of support for the implementation of further Moving Traffic Enforcement sites”, then sets out the objections and explains what was done about them. (Moving Traffic Enforcement Update Report, Appendix A)
Three sites dropped, one kept despite the objections
Thirteen locations went into the consultation and ten came out of it. The three now on hold are:
- Mere Way at the Towcester Road roundabout, the yellow box by Tesco. It drew the heaviest opposition of the lot, 222 against and 63 in favour, or 73.3 per cent opposed. Respondents said the exit cannot be seen clearly until a driver is committed, and that the signal timings push people into the box. The project team accepted that and removed the site.
- Ellis Way, a proposed School Street. It needs a package of physical changes and a traffic management review first.
- Abington Street, the no entry and one-way stretch. Removed after a problem with the survey results was resolved and the recorded level of transgressions turned out to be very low.
One site survived objections of a similar scale. Weedon Road drew 58.4 per cent opposition, the highest of the surviving ten, on much the same grounds of junction design and unpredictable traffic flow. The council is pressing ahead there, with what the report calls “some amendments to the extent of the current restriction”.
Residents also put forward their own suggestions for future sites, among them Victoria Promenade, Bridge Street, Fish Street, Angel Street, the Sixfields, Queen Eleanor and Barnes Meadow roundabouts, and roads by Barry Road Primary, Bridgewater Primary and Weston Favell schools. The project team says it will compile these into a long list.
What the first phase has actually done
Northampton has had moving traffic cameras since 2024. The council applied for the powers in February 2023 under the Traffic Management Act 2004 and they came into force that July.
The report contains the first full read of what has happened since. Between February 2024 and June 2026 the council issued 31,692 penalty charge notices to 27,976 individual vehicles.
- 25,591 vehicles, 91.5 per cent, got one PCN and never appeared again
- 2,385 vehicles, 8.5 per cent, got two or more and are classed as repeat offenders
- those repeat offenders account for 6,101 notices, 19.3 per cent of the total
The council’s press release says “more than 80 per cent of motorists receiving a penalty charge notice have avoided further breaches”. That 80 per cent figure is the share of notices that were one-offs, 80.7 per cent. Measured by driver, the report’s own conclusion is stronger: “more than nine out of ten motorists who received a PCN were not subsequently recorded committing another contravention”.
What it means for you
The fine is £70, halved to £35 if you pay within 21 days. It arrives by post with photographic evidence, not on your windscreen. The council has warned separately that it never issues penalty notices by text message.
You get a warning first, once. Warning notices are issued for a first offence at each site for the first six months after that camera goes live. Any further contravention at the same location after that brings a PCN.
A person checks every case. Enforcement runs on automatic number plate recognition, but the council says each contravention is reviewed by a human before a decision is made.
Nothing changes on the road today. With the list agreed, the council says it will prepare the sites for enforcement to begin later in the year. Signing and lining work comes first at several of them, and the six-month warning period at each camera only starts when that camera goes live.
You are already being enforced at six locations. The council’s penalty payment page lists them as the yellow box at Victoria Gardens and St John’s Street, no entry except buses on Deanshanger Road at Old Stratford, no entry except cycles on Gold Street, the bus-only route on Hermitage Way in Wootton, the banned right turn from Fishponds Road onto Great Billing Way, and the banned turns at Horsemarket with Gold Street and Mare Fair. All are enforced 24 hours a day. The council describes that first phase as five sites; its payment page currently lists six. (Pay or appeal a moving traffic PCN)
It is not funded by the fines, at least not to start with. Installation comes from the Consolidated Local Transport Fund, a Department for Transport grant. Running costs, meaning staff and maintenance, come from the surplus on the enforcement and parking account. The report expects the phase to be self-funding over the long term and, based on phase one, to produce a surplus. Under section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 that surplus can only go to public transport, highway projects and environmental improvements.
Cabinet met at 6pm on Tuesday 15 September at The Forum in Towcester. It resolved to confirm “their ongoing support for the Moving Traffic Enforcement programme” and “their support for the locations identified where additional Moving Traffic Enforcement will be undertaken”. The papers and the decision record are published in full on the council’s committee site. (Agenda and decisions, Cabinet, 15 September 2026)
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