Oppose the GM Clean Air Charge
Andy Burnham's clean air zone charge will be hugely damaging to businesses here in Bury. This affects ALL of Greater Manchester, including us here in Bury.
The instructions from the Government explicitly state that “Clean Air Zone proposals are not required to include a charging zone” yet the Mayor of Greater Manchester has chosen to place this extra burden on small businesses across our region.
It is also clear that there is no requirement for the charging zone to cover the whole 492 square miles of our region. In the West Midlands scheme, a small area of the very centre of Birmingham will be a charging zone. But here in Greater Manchester the Mayor has decided that everyone from the city centre to rural villages will be covered.
The only way to stop this disastrous policy is to back Laura Evans to be the next Mayor of Greater Manchester.
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The Government set out the principles for these schemes as part of a joint DEFRA and DfT document titled the “Clean Air Zone Framework”. This acts as guidance for devolved authorities on how they can address the issue of air pollution in their regions. It is the Government’s position that air pollution in our cities must be addressed, and that is quite right. Although, how this is achieved is a devolved issue that is decided by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Immediately below this I have included the list of minimum requirements that the Government has given to the devolved authorities.
As a minimum any Clean Air Zone is expected to:
• be in response to a clearly defined air quality problem, seek to address and continually improve it, and ensure this is understood locally;
• have signs in place along major access routes to clearly delineate the zone;
• be identified in local strategies including (but not limited to) local land use plans and policies and local transport plans at the earliest opportunity to ensure consistency with local ambition;
• provide active support for ultra low emission vehicle (ULEV)2 take up through facilitating their use;
• include a programme of awareness raising and data sharing;
• include local authorities taking a lead in terms of their own and contractor vehicle operations and procurement in line with this framework;
• ensure bus, taxi and private hire vehicle emission standards (where they do not already) are improved to meet Clean Air Zone standards using licensing, franchising or partnership approaches as appropriate; and
• support healthy, active travel.
As you can see from this list there is no specification that a scheme must charge, in fact it clearly states that “Clean Air Zone proposals are not required to include a charging zone”. It is also not the case that it must be imposed across the whole of Greater Manchester. For example, the proposal for the West Midlands is a relatively small area around the highest density part of Birmingham city centre which is perfectly acceptable under the Government guidance.
I am very supportive of the Government’s calls to reduce air pollution in Greater Manchester, it is a major problem for people’s health and welfare across the region. What I do not agree with however, is how the GMCA have decided they are going to implement this. I believe that the current plans are going to be hugely damaging to businesses in our area at a time where businesses are still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic.
I would like to emphasise that I will be opposing this scheme in the form that has been put forward by the GMCA and I will continue to raise the views of constituents and welcome people sharing those views with me.