High Court ruling could restrict urban hauliers

By Categories: NewsPublished On: Saturday 29 October 2016

lowemissionsignFresh plans will have to be drawn up to reduce nitrogen dioxide levels in British cities following a High Court ruling that the current government strategy would not deliver legal air quality in many urban areas.

Diesel vehicles could bear the brunt of resultant measures, with the possibility of further curbs and restrictions in urban areas.

After losing a previous case in the Supreme Court, the government had drawn up plans to introduce 16 Clean Air Zones in urban areas across the country. But this number was later cut to five outside London – Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton – on the grounds of reducing costs to business.

In the current case, Mr Justice Graham ruled that the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) had adopted “too optimistic” a model for future emissions reductions and must achieve compliance with EU air quality rules at “the soonest date possible”.

Environmental law firm ClientEarth, which brought the case to court, argued that real-world data had proved that the introduction of Euro 6 vehicles would not yield the hoped-for improvements in air quality.

Justice Graham said that if DEFRA had built its 2020 emissions forecast on “higher, more realistic, assumptions” then the number of Clean Air Zones it would have needed to set up would have increased “substantially”.

The government said it would not appeal against the decision, and agreed in court to discuss with ClientEarth a new timetable for more realistic pollution modelling and the steps needed to bring pollution levels down to legal levels.