Thousands of fines have been given out for driving through school streets in the city and nearby towns, raising more than £300,000 for the Oxfordshire County Council.
The scheme means that cars are not allowed to drive through specific roads close to the school at pick up and drop off times.
It aims to improve safety and making it easier to walk and cycle to school.
The county council has given out 17,455 fines for breaches of the rules, raising £317,394.49 since 2023, a Freedom of Information request sent by the Local Democracy Reporting Service has shown.
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The fine costs £70, which reduces to £35 if it is paid within 14 days.
Green councillor Emily Kerr said she had “an increasing number of messages from both residents and the schools themselves concerned about abuse of the system”.
She said: “School Streets have made areas around schools much safer, and I’m delighted they’re being rolled out.
“We should absolutely not be raising revenue from them We should be stopping drivers endangering children.”
The county council said that they review areas where there are a high number of fines and may add more signs to make people aware of the restriction.
The first four school streets – at Windmill Primary School, Larkrise Primary School, St Ebbe’s Primary School, and St Nicolas Primary School in Abingdon – were made permanent in 2022 after a trial period.
Another five school streets in Oxford and Didcot were made permanent last October - New Hinksey CE Primary School, St Mary and St John CE Primary School, Sandhills Community Primary School, Tyndale Community School and Manor Primary School, Didcot.
The highest number of fines were given out at the school streets at Windmill Primary School in Headington, with the council raising £197,821.93 from 8,173 fines.
Lynn Knapp, headteacher of Windmill Primary School, said she was “shocked” that so many cars were still driving through.
She added: “The signage into our school street is not obvious enough and drivers find themselves in it without realising.
“I have raised this multiple times with the council who acknowledge that more needs to be done on this point.
“The route is a bit of a rat run from the ring road through to the Nuffield Hospital and Headington.
“Drivers are sometimes following Google routes to reach the hospitals locally.”
During the trial there were ‘pop up’ gates and volunteers near the entrance, which were only opened to allow residents and exempt vehicles through.
This was later replaced by ANPR cameras, which allowed fines to be given out.
Ms Knapp added: “As result of the regular breaches of the camera system, the school street is definitely not as safe as it was when there were physical barriers manned by volunteers which was the position when we first started the system.
She added that the streets outside the school were “without doubt” safer than they were before the school street was introduced, and that the school is constantly trying to improve road safety nearby.
Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell from Oxfordshire Liveable Streets said: “If thousands of fines are being issued, that’s a clear signal that many drivers are still choosing to ignore a child-safety restriction – and it tells us more prevention is needed, not less.
“That means clearer comms and signage, but also designing the wider network so school streets aren’t sitting on rat-runs.
“The Windmill figures in particular show a school street can’t do all the work on its own: we need area-wide measures that reduce through-traffic so getting to school doesn’t feel like a daily hazard for families, especially in places like Headington, where you’ve got heavy destination traffic alongside cut-through traffic."
Robin Tucker from Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel said: “Most drivers will only make this mistake once, and that’s the point: the restriction is there to reduce the risk of harm to children.
“The measure succeeds when the school run feels safe and calm, and enforcement becomes unnecessary.”
Paul James, CEO of the River Learning Trust, which oversees Larksrise Primary School, said: “In some cases, this initiative is one reason parents or carers choose the school.
“Over the past three years, the number of children walking and cycling to school has significantly increased and through this scheme, which is helping children live healthier lives.
“The school ran a campaign at the start of the School Streets initiative, provides an explanation on its website, includes information in welcome packs for new parents and carers and continues to promote it via school email sign-offs.”
Cabinet member for transport management Andrew Gant said: “School streets are a perfect example of how a comparatively small initiative can make a huge difference.
“On the scale of the highways projects that we deliver, this is one of our cheapest programmes, and yet one of the most impactful.
“On the whole, we receive very good feedback about the benefits of our existing school streets.
“We continue to work closely with the schools and school communities to ensure their school streets are working the best that they can for them, and that people are well informed of the arrangements.
“The county council monitors all the ANPR sites, reviewing any instances where there have been higher numbers of penalty notices issued, in some cases adding or repositioning signs approaching the school street.”
Ms Kerr said the council should look into whether drivers that are issued a temporary pass (such as when a child has an injury) are continuing to use them after it is not needed, or whether all taxis with exemptions are using them correctly.
She said: “Taxi drivers bringing [local authority] looked-after children to school should of course be able to drive them onto the school grounds for safeguarding reasons, however they are not permitted to drive through the school street to drop their own children at the school.
“I imagine the council should hold data to establish whether both of these potential issues are or aren’t happening, and take measures to ensure they don’t.”
Lib Dem councillor Chris Smowton, who represents Headington, said he was campaigning for the signage to use flashing lights to show when the school street restriction as active.
He added: “Meanwhile the county has suggested the advisory blue signs could be highlighted in the same way, and I'll be pushing to get that delivered.”
School streets are funded by the Government’s active travel fund, with the county council investing a small sum of ring-fenced reserves from their capital funds into the programme.
The county council is set to spend £1.11 million on the scheme, and has already spent £660,000 on completing the first two phases.
Income from fines is used to cover the operational costs of cameras, and any surplus is spent on making it easier for children to walk, wheel and cycle to school.
After February half-term, more school streets trials will begin in Banbury, (Harriers Banbury Academy), Carterton (Edith Moorhouse Primary School and St Joseph's Catholic Primary School), and Didcot (Willowcroft Community Primary School and St Birinus Boys School).
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