Government issues council with direction to implement clean air charging zone

The Government has issued a legal direction to Coventry City Council ordering it to implement a clean air charging zone for polluting vehicles.

It said this was because this option in the city’s local plan was the one that would achieve compliance with legal air quality limits in the shortest possible time.

The direction also required Coventry to submit revised modelling by 14 June to demonstrate the type of zone required.

Coventry has been awarded £4.5m from the Implementation Fund to start this work.

A Defra spokesperson said: “Air pollution is a significant threat to public health which is why the Government is already taking ambitious action to tackle it. 

“Our new clean air strategy, which the World Health Organisation praise as ‘an example for the rest of the world to follow’, is the most ambitious air quality strategy in a generation and aims to halve the harm to human health from air pollution in the UK by 2030.”

Coventry in February agreed an action plan on air quality which omitted charging but promotes the use of electric vehicles, introduces real time monitoring lo move traffic away from areas experiencing poor air quality, encourages shifts to other travel modes and the construction of cycle routes.

A cabinet report in February said: “The preferred package avoids the need for any form of charging” and said the package “avoids the detrimental economic impacts that a CAZ would have upon the local communities within the city”.

The charging zone would affect older vehicles using the city centre, though its precise boundaries have yet to be fixed.

The Government also issued air quality directions to other councils: Hampshire, Surrey, Bath & North East Somerset, Rushmoor, Surrey Heath,, Fareham, Sheffield, Rotherham and Southampton but requiring mostly limited changes to approved plans.

Coventry did not respond to a request for comment, citing pre-European elections purdah.

Mark Smulian