Council exempts high-polluting vehicles from charges while travelling to hospital
High-polluting vehicles travelling within a clean air zone will be exempt from charges while going to hospital, a council has said.
Birmingham City Council has said motorists travelling to medical sites including Birmingham Children’s Hospital will be exempt from the Clean Air Zone [CAZ] daily fee.
It comes after the CAZ came into effect within Birmingham, charging certain vehicles to enter the city centre.
The local authority has set up a scheme that will allow motorists to pick up vouchers from reception at medical facilities located in the CAZ.
The vouchers, once collected at reception, must be redeemed online through the Brum Breathes website at brumbreathes.co.uk.
People will be able to pick up these vouchers at Birmingham Children's Hospital, Bath Row Medical Practice, Badger Medical Centre and the mass vaccination centre at Millennium Point.
Vouchers can be redeemed six days in advance of a visit, the day of a visit, or six days after.
Councillor Waseem Zaffar MBE, cabinet member for transport and environment said: "The Clean Air Zone has set the wheels in motion to create cleaner and safer air in our city.
"We have always understood the need to provide key groups of people with additional support as part of our journey towards cleaner air.
"It was particularly important that we support patients and parents visiting these locations so I’m really pleased that this scheme is in place at the point we start applying the Clean Air Zone daily fee."
Daily
The vouchers provide a code for a duration of a single CAZ payment day period, from midnight to midnight.
Voucher recipients will need to input the code on the Brum Breathes website which will then give them a 24-hour exemption for that period.
A new voucher will be required each day so any drivers who regularly attend the medical centres and hospitals will be able to get a voucher each day they visit.
The CAZ, which was intended to launch on June 1 but was delayed for two weeks, is a Government-mandated order that will charge the owners of high polluting vehicles to enter certain parts of the city in a bid to tackle levels of nitrogen dioxide above the legal limit.
The CAZ will cover all roads within the A4540 Middleway Ring Road but not the Middleway itself.
Any vehicles that enter will need to pay the daily charge £8 a day for cars and £50 a day for HGVs and coaches.
