‘Unjust’ Manchester CAZ plans slammed
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) last month called on the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, to include HGVs in a proposed pause to the city region’s clean air zone (CAZ) plans.
The association asked for an “urgent meeting” with Mr Burnham following a request by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) in January for the government to conduct an “urgent and fundamental” review of CAZ policy, after local backlash against the plans.
Mr Burnham said the city region, which had been obliged to introduce air quality measures by central government, had tried “in good faith to make the… legal direction work” but that it was “impossible to proceed on the current basis” without causing “real hardship”. Factors cited included the rising cost of raw materials used to manufacture electric vehicles, and delays in their delivery.
But a statement by GMCA suggested that, while the authority wished to delay proposals to charge vans entering the zone, it would continue with plans to charge HGVs and buses from May this year.
The RHA slammed the decision as a “damaging, anti-SME attack on lorry and bus operators” and “unjust, discriminatory and unacceptable”. It pointed out that vehicle supply problems also affected the HGV sector, and said HGVs should be included in the review and exempt from charges “until no earlier than May 2023”.
RHA environment lead Chris Ashley said: “We share the same goal of wanting clean air but we maintain our view that the current CAZ approach, whilst well-intended, is deeply flawed. There are insufficient Euro VI vehicles to meet demand and the changeover to Euro VI has been slowed by Covid, leading to the many operational and financial difficulties for businesses within and outside of Greater Manchester.
“We have long made clear that alternative solutions exist, and we are seeking to engage with the mayor and the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit to work through technical fixes. Given the shortage of Euro VI lorries, options include delaying the start of the CAZ for HGVs until the vehicle replacement market has recovered, reducing the size of the charging CAZ or linking compliance to Euro V as alternative incremental step.”
In an update to members via its Roadway Live service in mid- January, the RHA called out public authorities and the government for having “consistently ignored” its warnings over CAZ policy and the expense of switching to compliant vehicles, a shortage of which it said had been compounded by Covid.
RHA said it believed government officials had been “obstructive to all suggestions” and continued to “peddle misinformation” about vehicle retrofits and life cycles.
“The worst aspect of this, given the cost and damage the lives of people and business of Manchester, is that this pay-to-pollute CAZ coming in for lorries in May will fail to make any effective difference to the air quality in the areas of Manchester which need to be addressed,” it said.
“The RHA supports clean air measures that are effective, proportionate and fair. Manchester’s clean air zone is none of those things.”
