A COUNCILLOR has criticised the communication side of Bradford’s Clean Air Zone after asking what any income will be spent on.

The Clean Air Zone was introduced last month, and sees the most polluting commercial vehicles charged to enter much of the city.

Any income from the CAZ legally has to be spent on schemes to reduce carbon and pollution in the District.

At a meeting of the Council on Tuesday, Councillor Matt Edwards (Green, Tong) asked Council bosses to share “proposals for managing the revenue that will be generated.”

A response from the Executive said: “Outline plans for how any excess CAZ revenue is spent is contained in Annex 3 of the Bradford CAZ Charging Scheme Order (CSO). CAZ revenue is ring fenced and can only be used in line with Schedule 12 of the Transport Act 2000.

“All programmes and schemes that may be funded will be subject to assessment by the Clean Air Programme Board that reports to the Health and Wellbeing Committee and the Council Executive Committee.”

Cllr Edwards appeared unimpressed with the bureaucratic answer, saying: “It is pretty indicative of the communication side of the Clean Air Zone that when we are able to put something out in the public domain to highlight benefits of the scheme – the Council just says ‘check the terms and conditions.’”

Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said they were only a few weeks into the Clean Air Zone, adding: “Some seem in a hurry to spend money that hasn’t come in yet. All members will be consulted on what it is spent on. It has just started, you have to give the process a chance.”

The annex referred to in the Council’s answer says: “The revenue generated by the Scheme would in the first place be used to cover the cost of operation of the Scheme, including the maintenance of cameras, operational staff etc.

“It is not anticipated that the proposed Scheme would generate substantial net revenues.

“Indeed, the more vehicles that are compliant with the Scheme’s standards the less revenue will be generated.

“The Council’s detailed plan for applying any net proceeds during this period would therefore depending to a large extent on the level of net proceeds generated, but improvements might include:

  • Funding for transport related environmental assessments;
  • Support for CAZ health impact assessments and school creativity labs carried out by Born in Bradford;
  • Providing continuing support to upgrade vehicles in the district;
  • Expanding the electric vehicle charging network in the district
  • Creating a hydrogen test bed to support the transition of public service vehicles, such as buses and refuse collection vehicles
  • Supporting zero emission delivery networks including freight consolidation and zero emission last journey delivery
  • Helping to reduce traffic emissions around schools
  • Providing additional park and ride capacity facilities with high quality service connections to the city centre
  • Accelerating the transition to cleaner fuels and technologies.