Birmingham Clean Air Zone 'must be introduced as early as possible in 2021'
Birmingham’s delayed Clean Air Zone must be introduced "as early as possible" in 2021, the council’s cabinet member for transport has said.
Councillor Waseem Zaffar said the cabinet was right to take the decision to delay the charge, which was originally intended to be introduced this summer.
But he added that the council "have got to introduce the Clean Air Zone" (CAZ) as soon as is feasible, pointing to the drop in air pollution in recent weeks as evidence of what the city has got to look forward to.
Earlier this year Councillor Zaffar wrote to the government to request a delay to launch of the charge, which will see high-polluting cars charged £8 a day to enter the city centre.
In his letter, he asked that the launch be pushed back until at least January 2021, to allow businesses and residents time to adjust to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Reflecting on the decision, Councillor Zaffar said he was glad that the city council had taken the decision to delay the charge, allowing businesses to focus on the priority of Covid-19.
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However, he says that the delay agreed upon by the government does not change plans for the CAZ, which he hopes will be launched "as early as possible".
“I think very early on after government decided on the lockdown, we had some conversations at the council,” he said.
“At a time when businesses are thinking about their future and whether they could pay their staff or not, without any income, they clearly couldn’t be focussing on the implementation of the CAZ, they couldn’t be focussing on buying compliant cars, or shifting from private car use to public transport – these challenges just didn’t make sense.
“However, the delay didn’t amend the ministerial direction, so that still stands, and ultimately that means we have to bring forward the CAZ as early as possible in 2021. And I do think that’s absolutely required.
“We’ve clearly seen during the drop in transport – there’s been approximately a 70 per cent drop in transport in this city – and that’s had a massive impact in nitrous oxide levels in the city.
“But people generally are posting on social media to say that they feel the sky is cleaner, they feel a lot better when they’re out on their walk.
“And quite rightly so, because when we do have better levels of air quality people do feel a lot lot better, and that does have a massive impact on people’s health and their wellbeing too.
“So we’ve got to introduce the CAZ, but we’ve just put the pause button on it for now while we deal with the challenges that Covid-19 bring.”
