Carmarthenshire Council’s ‘magic roundabout’ continues to see thousands of drivers making a very costly mistake
Trostre Roundabout in Llanelli(Image: google maps)
There’s a roundabout in Carmarthenshire which has been getting quite a lot of attention over the past year or so. It’s a fairly unremarkable roundabout on the face of it and is flanked by exits, signs, and junctions all leading off in various directions either further into or further away from Llanelli.
The roundabout in question is known as Trostre Roundabout. It boasts five exits, one of which is designated as a bus lane. Yes, you probably know the one I mean now.
In late 2023 I was slapped with a £70 fine for driving down the aforementioned bus lane – something I hadn’t realised I had done until the doom-laden sound of a letter from Carmarthenshire Council panged on my door mat. Stay informed on Carms news by signing up to our newsletter here.
With the aid of photographic evidence the council had well and truly proven that I and my silly little Seat car had indeed driven down a bus lane. What an idiot. And I only turned off to grab a coffee from the McDonald’s restaurant which sits next to the exit in question.
Direction signs leading up to the roundabout feature a small blue circle with an image of a bus and the words ‘Yn unig/only’ alongside it. The same symbol is displayed at the entrance to the exit and there’s faded text on the road surface which says ‘buses only’.
I didn’t contest the fine I had been handed. It was my fault. I didn’t do it on purpose but that’s the rules of the road – or in this case the roundabout. But it did get me thinking. Am I that bad a driver/person that nobody else could possibly have made the same mistake?
Well, as it turns out, I was not alone in the circle of shame. Far from it. In fact thousands and thousands of people have done the same thing – and that’s just since I started looking into it.
The reality is an exit lane at Trostre Roundabout in Llanelli is a major source of income for Carmarthenshire Council.
The roundabout is situated right next to a McDonald’s restaurant and a Greggs(Image: Google)
I submitted an FOI to the council shortly after my expensive mishap. It revealed that in 12 months – between the start of December 2022 and the end of November 2023 – £509,525 was paid in fines to Carmarthenshire Council from thousands of drivers who used the bus lane off Trostre Roundabout.
More recently I submitted another FOI, this time asking for data for 2024 and 2025, and it’s fair to say that Carmarthenshire Council is still making a pretty penny as a result of this normal-looking roundabout.
Between the beginning of January 2024 and the end of July 2025 more than 16,000 penalty charge notices were issued to drivers caught on camera driving down the bus lane. As for the income received from those fines it came to a total of £654,999.
To put that into context, the figure means that Carmarthenshire Council make more money in fines from one lane of one roundabout than it routinely does from handing out parking fines not just across Llanelli (the county’s biggest town) but across the entire county (it made £350,000 from parking fines between April 2022 and April 2023).
While the data for the bus lane is based over a 17-month period and not a 12-month period the amount collected in fines is almost double the amount.
It all means that, in less than three years, Carmarthenshire Council has collected way more than £1m in fines from drivers using the bus lane at Trostre Roundabout.
The council has consistently maintained that the roundabout does include proper signage and that revenue generated from fines is reinvested into public transport and road maintenance.
But that does not stop people from complaining about the issue and labelling the roundabout as something of a money-spinner for the authority.
“The bus lane doesn’t start until after you have left the roundabout and you are then effectively unable to do anything other than drive through it as to reverse back on to the roundabout to avoid it would be dangerous,” one woman wrote in an email to WalesOnline.
Another driver said “it feels like a bit of a trap that is there to make money – a modern-day highway robbery”. One man, describing it as “the council’s magic roundabout”, called on the authority to “end this complete farce by investing in better signage”.
Councillor Edward Thomas, cabinet member for transport, waste, and infrastructure services at Carmarthenshire Council, said: “The traffic signs at Trostre roundabout are complaint with the relevant regulations.
“The bus lane is accessed from Trostre roundabout and we have ensured that all approach roads to the roundabout include advance signs warning approaching drivers that one of the accesses off the roundabout is restricted.
“On the roundabout itself the presence of the bus lane is then clearly shown with appropriate signs which are reinforced with additional carriageway markings on a red surface. Income generated from bus lane enforcement fines is tightly controlled by national legislation and cannot be used as general revenue.
“Any surplus income after covering the operational costs of enforcement must be reinvested solely into specific transport related functions such as improving public transport, enhancing road safety, maintaining or upgrading highways, or supporting sustainable travel initiatives. This directly benefits road users, reduces congestion, and strengthens local transport infrastructure.”