NWR Blackwall Tunnel: PCN's

Mark Priestley

Mark Priestley

Location
London
Arrived home from work yesterday to find that I had received two PCN's (Penalty Charge Notices) from Transport for London due to travelling through the Blackwall Tunnel in London without paying the charge for usage.

Evidently you now have to pay to travel through the Blackwall Tunnel. It was always free to travel through the tunnel, but since April 2025 charges for use have been introduced.

I very rarely use the Blackwall Tunnel (this was my first usage of it this year) and was completely unaware of this rule change. I didn't notice any signage on the journey to the tunnel entry point informing me that this is a chargeable zone, although in fairness I wasn't looking out for any

I'm looking at a penalty charge of £90 (£180 total if paid within 14 days; escalates after this time to £270) for the two journeys made (over a period of three days whilst I was in Kent).

I was wondering whether anyone here feels that I have strong enough grounds to appeal successfully against these two PCN's?

Any thoughts/opinions much appreciated
 
Sorry, nothing to be able to say to help you Mark, but surely you should have had an opportunity to pay the fee before a fine is forthcoming?

Thankfully my only experience is the M50 round in Dublin. An email is sent to you to make payment. I avoid it usually, but have had to pay the charge twice.
 
Hi Mark, you have my sympathies. You will now notice all the signage when you next travel that way..... I had a similar experience but found out after I had also passed back through the other way a week later.
 
Yes when they were building/completing the silver link part the signage was not up but the charge had kicked in. However due to fines in the congestion charge from not being aware it now applies on weekends, I had a TfL account set up with my card details/DD included so that I don’t get stung like with Dartford where they let you off twice before fining so I just had a random £2 charge (or whatever the price is).

The London news had reported about it and there was one sign on the approach North to South when not closed off for the construction warning of the changes which hadn’t been removed when I noticed it back in May/June. So I think a challenge would likely not work. The DD system works well although logging in to change details is a real pain and means I just don’t have to worry about the fines.
 
I got caught out when they made the Congestion Charge also applicable at weekends, but successfully appealed with the defence of "I don't live in London so didn't see any of the advertising about it, and when I'm driving in London I'm more concentrating on not driving into other road users instead of reading the details on signs for things that I wasn't expecting to have changed."
 
If you live in an adjoining county it is definitely worth signing up for transport for london account with auto pay as if you forget or miss a payment it is an automatic penalty.
The rules are constantly changing and the cameras for things like ULEZ are also changing.
I signed up even though I probably go in a couple of times a year.

Recently I was caught for ULEZ using the Heathrow POD parking, it had previously been OK but they now have a camera parked right outside.
Having the account setup it only cost me £12.50 instead of the fine so definitely worth it.
It will also autopay blackwall tunnel as well I believe.

Congestion Charge (Official)
 
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Mark Priestley said:
Arrived home from work yesterday to find that I had received two PCN's (Penalty Charge Notices) from Transport for London due to travelling through the Blackwall Tunnel in London without paying the charge for usage.

Evidently you now have to pay to travel through the Blackwall Tunnel. It was always free to travel through the tunnel, but since April 2025 charges for use have been introduced.

I very rarely use the Blackwall Tunnel (this was my first usage of it this year) and was completely unaware of this rule change. I didn't notice any signage on the journey to the tunnel entry point informing me that this is a chargeable zone, although in fairness I wasn't looking out for any

I'm looking at a penalty charge of £90 (£180 total if paid within 14 days; escalates after this time to £270) for the two journeys made (over a period of three days whilst I was in Kent).

I was wondering whether anyone here feels that I have strong enough grounds to appeal successfully against these two PCN's?

Any thoughts/opinions much appreciated
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that the signs (such as they are) are the same red/white C sign as for the Congestion Charge, so if I didn't know about the Blackwall/Silvertown tunnel charges I'd probably have seen them and thought "that must just be warning me of the CC a few miles away"...
 
Alistair Lime said:
If you live in an adjoining county it is definitely worth signing up for transport for london account with auto pay as if you forget or miss a payment it is an automatic penalty.
The rules are constantly changing and the cameras for things like ULEZ are also changing.
I signed up even though I probably go in a couple of times a year.

Recently I was caught for ULEZ using the Heathrow POD parking, it had previously been OK but they now have a camera parked right outside.
Having the account setup it only cost me £12.50 instead of the fine so definitely worth it.
It will also autopay blackwall tunnel as well I believe.

Congestion Charge (Official)
Click to expand...

It does… although weirdly DartCharge was historically separate but if you had an account you just tell it what to add. Mine is a monthly direct debit for all charges in a particular month.
 
Mark Priestley said:
Arrived home from work yesterday to find that I had received two PCN's (Penalty Charge Notices) from Transport for London due to travelling through the Blackwall Tunnel in London without paying the charge for usage.

Evidently you now have to pay to travel through the Blackwall Tunnel. It was always free to travel through the tunnel, but since April 2025 charges for use have been introduced.

I very rarely use the Blackwall Tunnel (this was my first usage of it this year) and was completely unaware of this rule change. I didn't notice any signage on the journey to the tunnel entry point informing me that this is a chargeable zone, although in fairness I wasn't looking out for any

I'm looking at a penalty charge of £90 (£180 total if paid within 14 days; escalates after this time to £270) for the two journeys made (over a period of three days whilst I was in Kent).

I was wondering whether anyone here feels that I have strong enough grounds to appeal successfully against these two PCN's?

Any thoughts/opinions much appreciated
Click to expand...
My barber reckons that chat gpt can help with this sort of thing. Ask it for help and to draft a defense.
 
The other one I would warn about is manchester airport drop off. Been stung for not paying within 24 hours of dropping someone off. (They have got rid of the barriers where you paid with a card).
 
Joel Hopwood said:
I did concoct a surefire way around these appallingly horrible schemes (airport drop off being the absolute worst) which is to buy a car from abroad (in my case a 1971 Porsche 911 2.2E), de-register it / export in the country of origin, insure it on the chassis number, and just drive it around on its old French plates.
Click to expand...
Driving through London in a old manual car with no adaptive cruise seems like absolute torture, I think I would rather pay multiple fines.
 
I had a similar experience at the Dartford Crossing when they replaced the 'coins in the basket' payment method with the ANPR system. We use the crossing, and tunnel, once a year when travelling to the Eurotunnel. When I crossed the Thames I had my pound coins ready to throw in the basket and was puzzled that there were no baskets, and assumed that, like the Scottish bridges, the charges had been abolished. A few weeks after returning home I was sent a penalty notice for both the southbound and northbound trips. I appealed them and strangely, the southbound appeal was rejected and the northbound appeal was upheld. So I phoned them to ask why and explained that I wasn't aware you had to pay up front (and there were no signs saying you had 24 hours to pay after crossing). I was told it was widely advertised in advance. I said to them that it wasn't advertised in Scotland!! And added that all the bridge crossing charges in Scotland e.g. Forth Road Bridge and Tay Road Bridge were abolished several years previously and I assumed this was England catching up. They then rescinded the penalty and I paid the standard charge for each way.
However, given you are in London, Mark, you may not get away as easily with the Blackwall penalties, but worth a try appealing anyway.
 
Having looked at the signs, I would tend to agree and hope the court finds in his favour. At the least, they could have a 1 year period where fines are very modest - eg. £10 or something like that. Consider it a bit of private education to cover admin costs. Or maybe they keep a record of number plates and only dish out the big fines after 1 "warning mini fine".
 
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They used to give you the first two crossings at standard charge for Dartford because they were trying to get people used to the system. Third strike was then a fine. It’s pretty well signposted these days.
 
I would say if someone has invested £millions/£billions on an infrastructure asset that people want to use it’s fair enough to charge them to do so…. but they should make it clear how and what is payable.
 
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