AROUND a quarter of West Yorkshire’s bus fleet is set to become ‘cleaner’ thanks to a £4.75 million project.

Plans to fit emission-reducing clean technology to more than 230 of the county’s buses were approved at a meeting of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority yesterday.

The scheme, scheduled to be completed by March 2019, is to be funded by £4.21 million from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) Clean Bus Technology Fund, secured by the Combined Authority and Leeds City Council, and more than £500,000 from bus operators.

The technology is forecast to remove 31 tonnes – the weight of around 19 cars – of harmful nitrogen oxides from buses per year and deliver £3.9 million in reduced environmental and health damage costs over a five-year period.

Councillor Keith Wakefield, chairman of the Combined Authority’s Transport Committee, said: “Now, as a result of successful bids to DEFRA by the Combined Authority and Leeds City Council and contributions by bus operators, we have the opportunity to invest £4.75 million in making the air that people across West Yorkshire are breathing, cleaner.”