..GREEN MEANS
GO...GREEN MEANS GO
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL ANNOUNCE £5,000 GRANT FOR HC DRIVERS TO PREPARE FOR CLEAN AIR ZONE
Birmingham City Council (BCC) has announced a new £5,000 grant for Birmingham-licensed hackney drivers. The grant is part of the £15m grants package to support Birmingham’s HC and PH drivers prepare for the launch of the Clean Air Zone on 1 June 2021. The Government’s vehicle checker tool can be used to find out if a vehicle will be subject to the daily charge:
www.gov.uk/check-clean-air-zone-charge Hackney Carriages: D – £5,000 towards a CVRAS accredit- ed retrofit solution
E – £5,000 towards running a ULEV F - £5,000 contribution towards a Euro 4 petrol or Euro 6 diesel com- pliant vehicle, unless eligible for the government’s plug-in grant
To be eligible, HC drivers must have been licensed by BCC since 10 Septem- ber 2018 and be the registered owner/ keeper of a non-compliant vehicle. Cllr Waseem Zaffar, the BCC’s cabinet member for transport and the environ- ment, said: “We recognise that it has been a difficult year for our HC drivers and we know that they want to help create a clean air city. This new grant will provide more options to upgrade or replace vehicles that would otherwise be subject to the daily charge.” In March 2019, the Government provid- ed Birmingham City Council with a total of £7.75 million of funding to deliver the HC support grants, includ- ing the £2.5 million retrofit fund which will be used to support this new grant.
The council also received £9 million for PH drivers to apply for grants. Private Hire Vehicles: A - £1,000 towards upgrade to Euro 4 petrol or Euro 6 diesel vehicle.
B – £2,000 towards upgrade to a hybrid EV (better than a Euro 4/Euro 6 but not a ULEV).
C – £2,500 towards running a ULEV. Birmingham’s CAZ will go live on 1 June 2021 and will charge the most high-pol- luting vehicles to drive within the A4540 Middleway (but not the Middle- way itself). Cars, taxis and LGVs (vans) will be charged £8 a day whilst coaches and HGVs will be charged £50 a day. For more information and to register for grant, visit:
https://www.brumbreathes.co.uk/taxis
NORTHUMBERLAND’S AGE LIMIT PROPOSALS TO REDUCE TAXI EMISSIONS DELAYED
Age limit proposals to reduce emis- sions from Northumberland’s taxis have been delayed. The Hexham Courant reported, the county council was originally proposing that from April 2020, new taxi licences would only be issued to cars which are less than four years old, meaning they would all meet the Euro 6 emissions standard. For existing vehicles, a maximum eight- year life would be adopted, with a start date of April 2023, while WAVs would have an extra two years, meaning a compliance date of April 2025. All 12 local authorities in the North East had agreed to this plan, with the aim of introducing the new rules at the same
time to ensure consistency. However, at a meeting in February 2020, the council’s licensing and regulatory committee heard that the consultation had resulted in one of the largest responses the authority has had from the taxi industry. Members were told that responses were generally supportive about tighter controls on emissions, but there were significant concerns about the timescales. The committee agreed that the process should be halted for further discussions with taxi drivers and to ensure a unified approach across the North East, but this came just before the first Covid-19 lockdown.
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A report to the committee’s latest meeting, on Thursday, February 11, explained that the restrictions ‘reduced the ability of the licensing team to complete this work due to reduced resources, required changes to procedures and prioritisation of Covid- related work’. It was also acknowledged that the challenges faced by the trade at that time were substantial, with staffing issues and significant reduction in demand for their services. Councillors agreed that more work needs to be done before a decision can be reached, not least seeking views from the trade.
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