Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees announced the September start date for the Clean Air Zone yesterday, confirming that the scheme had been put back 3 months. The announcement comes after the government launched its new vehicle checker, where motorists can check if they need to pay a charge for the vehicle.
The #CleanAir Zone (CAZ) starts this summer
Our vehicle checker shows if you’ll be affected – just enter your number plate
71% of #Bristol motorists won’t be charged at all
We’re providing £42m to help Bristolians get cleaner vehicles
https://t.co/rXCTcfn8gt pic.twitter.com/zJXwsqgKLq
— Marvin Rees (@MarvinJRees) February 14, 2022
Bristol hasn’t provided a list of the vehicles that will be charged, but has instead issued a guide on vehicles that won’t need to pay:
- Euro 4, 5 and 6 petrol vehicles, roughly 2006 upwards
- Euro 6 diesel vehicles, roughly end of 2015 onwards
- fully electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
- all hybrid vehicles
- modified or retrofitted vehicles registered with the Energy Saving Trust’s Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation Scheme (CVRAS)
- motorbikes
Non-compliant HGVs, buses and coaches will have to pay £100 a day to enter the zone. The fee makes Bristol one of the two cities in England with the highest charges.
Daily CAZ charges for HGVs in England:
- Bath: £100
- Birmingham: £50
- Bradford: £50
- Bristol: £100 (from September)
- Portsmouth: £50
- Greater Manchester: £60 charge for non-compliant HGVs (but the implementation of the CAZ plan has been delayed in that area)
Bristol City Council has, however, secured £32 million of government funding for businesses to upgrade HGVs, LGVs, taxis and private hire vehicles.
Small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed people based in the zone will be prioritised for business grants in the first round.
| Vehicle type | Grant per vehicle | Loan per vehicle | Funding award |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car | £2,000 | £5,000 | £879,189 |
| Taxi PHV | £1,500 | £9,000 | £1m |
| Taxi Hackney | £4,000 | £9,000 | £1.3m |
| LGV (vans and larger vehicles under 3.5 tonnes) | £4,000 | £16,000 | £9.6m |
| HGV | £16,000 | £26,000 | £743,772 |
| Coach | £16,000 | £35,000 | £1.1m |
| Bus retrofit | – | – | £2m |
Source: Bristol City Council
Photo: Sam Saunders / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0