Many residents are interested in the update of the Clean Air Zone in Greater Manchester. Here is the update for your reference.
The original GM Clean Air Plan included a Greater Manchester-wide category C charging Clean Air Zone. Only the most polluting vehicles which don't meet emission standards would have been charged to drive in the Zone.
The Clean Air Zone was designed to comply with a legal direction from the government issued before the coronavirus pandemic. Since then there have been significant vehicle supply chain issues, particularly for vans, and the cost of living has increased.
This means that the original Clean Air Plan was unworkable. It would not have met the obligations in the direction to achieve compliance with the legal limit for harmful nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) air pollution by 2024 and could have caused significant financial hardship for people affected.
In February 2022 government agreed to lift the legal direction that GM should achieve compliance with legal NO₂ limits by 2024. It has issued a new direction for compliance in the shortest possible time and by 2026 at the latest. As a result, the first phase of the Greater
Manchester Clean Air Zone didn’t go ahead on 30 May 2022.
GM has now published a case for a new Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan, which was submitted to the government on 1 July 2022. It sets out evidence supporting an investment-led approach, with no charging Clean Air Zone, to address the city region’s NO₂ air pollution problem.
The submission includes:
Evidence that economic conditions have deteriorated significantly since the previous Clean Air Plan was agreed upon in the summer of 2021, with businesses in Greater Manchester now dealing with the cost-of-living crisis, higher inflation and high vehicle fuel costs.
New analysis which shows how an investment-led approach could see financial support targeted towards upgrading vehicles which frequently travel through locations where modelling shows breaches of legal NO₂ limits might otherwise continue.
A commitment to review local policy changes, such as goods vehicle access controls, alongside regulatory measures such as hackney carriage and private hire vehicle licensing standards to accelerate fleet upgrades.
A proposal to work with the government to agree on the targeted use of the Clean Air Plan automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to support the identification of vehicles that could be upgraded, and also for potential police use to detect crime.
Cost:
£120m in government funding to help people upgrade to compliant vehicles will remain in place to support the implementation of a new Plan.
Apart from officer time to develop the plan, as of July 2022, the Clean Air Zone service contract required a Greater Manchester-wide category C charging Zone, including the installation and maintenance of ANPR cameras, a public-facing Clean Air Zone office to handle payments, discounts, exemptions and financial reconciliation along with any Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), was £6,101,048. Expenditure to the end of March 2022 on the signage contract was £2,048,872.
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