Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone criticised for private car exemption

The Clean Air Zone scheme will come into effect on 30 May 2022

A plan to charge high-emission vehicles to drive across Greater Manchester has been criticised for not including a key source of "illegal pollution".

Coaches, vans, buses, taxis, private-hire vehicles and lorries will face charges from May 2022, after the area's leaders passed a Clean Air Zone plan.

However, environmental groups said the failure to include private cars meant the scheme did not go far enough.

Greater Manchester's mayor said the scheme would be "a real benefit".

Daily charges for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and buses will be rolled out from 30 May 2022, coaches will be exempt until May 2023 and vans and minibuses will not be charged a £10 daily fee.

Taxis and private hire vehicles registered with Greater Manchester councils will be exempt from a £7.50 daily charge for a year.

'Weaker'

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said it was hoped the delay would help businesses and individuals transition to cleaner vehicles by making use of a £120m government support fund.

The zone was approved by the region's combined authority on 25 June.

Andy Burham (above right) has urged local authorities to get more serious about health inequalities

The region's mayor Mr Burnham told council leaders it was "hitting a point that works for everybody" and while "there will be challenges ahead", improvements to vehicles would bring "a real benefit for business but, critically, for people's health".

It has been claimed that air pollution, primarily caused by vehicles, has contributed to 1,200 deaths a year in the region.

In a joint letter to the authority, environmental lawyers ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth Manchester and the British Lung Foundation expressed disappointment that private cars, which they called "one of the key sources of illegal pollution", would not be subject to penalties.

They said the approved scheme was also "weaker" than first proposed, because of the vehicle exemptions in the first year.

They said an "effective" scheme would protect "our most vulnerable residents by urgently reducing air pollution" and added that the original plans should be implemented, even if that entailed "some difficult political decisions".

Trafford Council leader Andrew Western, the authority's lead on clean air policy, has previously said modelling suggested that the region's air quality would be compliant by 2024 even with the exemptions.