Ken Hawkins

I was pleased to second a motion proposed by my Liberal Democrat colleagues at Solihull Council yesterday evening. It called for ‘A Fair Share of Speeding Fine Revenue to Improve Local Road Safety’. Making our roads even safer than they are now is important to me and tackling speeding plays a major part. The motion is not about bashing the motorist, it is about helping to make our roads even safer and I thanked the Liberal Democrat group for allowing me to second their important motion.

The motion is not about bashing the motorist. It is about helping to make our roads and people safer.

The Council was told: 

· That speeding fines across England generate around £100 million per year, all of which is paid directly to HM Treasury, with no share returned to local authorities.

· That councils, including Solihull, are responsible for maintaining highways, improving road safety, delivering traffic calming schemes, and responding to persistent community concerns about speeding and dangerous driving.

· That local authorities frequently fund enforcement infrastructure—such as average speed cameras, ANPR enforcement points, signage, and engineering works—yet receive no income from the fines issued as a result of these measures.

· That the West Midlands region generates over £1.6 million per year in speeding fine revenue, none of which is retained locally to support road safety improvements.

· That communities across the borough consistently call for greater investment in traffic calming, crossings, school street safety, and active travel protection.

It is clear a fairer national funding model is required to ensure that money raised from speeding offences is reinvested into the communities where those offences occur. In addition, this will enable councils to retain a proportion of speeding fine revenue which would create a stable, locally controlled funding stream for road safety improvements.

“It is important to note – this is not about bashing the motorist. However, if drivers break the speed limit some fines should be retained locally. 

The West Midlands representing approximately 9% of the UK population, and only around 1.6% of national speeding fine revenue is generated here. We need to understand more about this disparity”.

The Council resolved to write to HM Government, the Secretary of State for Transport, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer requesting that local authorities receive 50% of the annual revenue generated from speeding fines issued within their area – to be ring fenced exclusively for road safety improvements, including average speed cameras, engineering measures, enforcement support, school safety schemes, and active travel protection.

I did remind council that both the WMCA Mayor, Richard Parker, as well as the Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, had previously written to eh government about this same issue, which I applauded at the time.

The whole motion can be read via this link (Agenda item 10, motion 5): Agenda for Council on Tuesday 7th July 2026, 5.30 pm | Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council