NPHTA: CLEAN AIR David Lawrie, Director NPHTA
dave@nphta.co.uk www.nphta.co.uk
We have published several articles to highlight “what the NPHTA has been doing” over the last few months, so I didn’t want to run the same thing again, as it becomes repetitive and comes across as glory hunting. So this month, after some Clean Air Zone updates, I will simply make a few announcements to keep you all up to date, to highlight some excellent things that have been going on in the background.
Of course, we have still been involved in various meetings with various government bodies: we have seen the start of the Clean Air Zone charge in Bath, and by the time you read this article, the Birmingham zone will also have gone live; the key difference between the two are that whilst the Bath charge pertains to delivery vehicles, coaches, buses, taxis and private hire, the Birmingham CAZ will be for ALL road users, including private motorists.
BIRMINGHAM GOES LIVE - JUNE 1 There is a two-week grace period before charging.
Whilst many private motorists may consider the fact that all road users are being charged to be unfair, in all hon- esty this has been the bone of contention in all other areas since the first discussions took place about the whole idea of charging zones, with the perfectly justifi- able question: Why are private motorists not being charged, only the service providers?
Essentially this means that the majority of vehicles are not tested as frequently, are not restricted on the age limitations, and in many cases private motorists could be travelling about in old, very dirty vehicles which create far more emis- sions than any licensed vehicle or delivery vehicle.
BATH UPDATE
In the first reports and updates from Bath, it was shown that 409 licensed vehicles had failed to pay the charges, but far more of the larger vehicles had failed to pay - and by more, I mean into the thousands. We did predict this would be the case during the various meetings and discus- sions that took place leading up to, and still continuing following the implementation of the first charging here, and as we look ahead to the rolling out of the charges in other regions.
LEEDS CANCELS THE CHARGING ZONE.
Leeds of course scrapped their charging zone by adopting traffic calming measures as a way of complying with the government-imposed areas of concern without a daily fee being imposed on taxis and private hire vehicles.
Quite understandably though, this caused a lot of anger for those who had already spent thousands on cleaner, newer, compliant vehicles in order to satisfy the Clean Air Zone requirements and avoid being charged a daily fee, only for it to be scrapped. So whilst this was seen as amaz- ing news for some, for others it was seen as a major slap in the face.
SHEFFIELD SHOWS PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO LARGER VEHICLES.
Sheffield on the other hand is still to our knowledge the only local authority that is not accepting euro 6 diesel and
56 JUNE 2021
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