MY son and his disabled wife have just moved back to England from Denmark and have an apartment in the centre of Warrington near the bus station.

I’ve been to their apartment four or five times and find Warrington incredibly busy and difficult to drive through.

On Christmas Day I picked them up to bring them to my house for Christmas dinner and the roads were almost empty. I thought I would see if there was a quicker/ easier route to the motorway.

I drove near to the rugby stadium and before I knew it I found myself in a bus lane and continued onto the motorway.

I didn’t think anything of it as it was Christmas Day and there were no buses and I had no idea that bus lane fines still existed.

They don’t in Liverpool where I live. Yet today I have received a fixed penalty fine for being in a bus lane on Christmas Day when there were no buses.

I cannot have been causing any sort of issue that affected traffic flow/public transport as there was none.

I understand the logic of managing traffic flow as Warrington is so busy but when buses are not running on such public holidays such a policy makes no sense (apart from collecting money).

I had no idea that I had contravened anything.

I don’t know if local people would know not to make the mistake that I made but I did.

I spent my career in local government and find this policy to be really harsh. Thank you and Merry Christmas Warrington Council.

MICHAEL MARTIN Warrington