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Greater Manchester is preparing to submit an updated Clean Air Plan to government with the city-region’s latest air quality data showing improvements on local roads.
The city-region’s preferred plan for the scheme rules out charges for vehicles driven on roads across Greater Manchester, and will support investment into new low-emission buses and a fund for taxi drivers to upgrade their vehicles. Modelling shows plan would meet a legal requirement to improve air quality by 2026. An alternative charging plan that would cover Manchester city centre and neighbouring parts of Salford would not meet the deadline. Plans for a charging zone for commercial vehicles covering the whole of Greater Manchester were shelved owing to difficulties in sourcing zero-emissions vehicles in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A key element of the proposed plan is investment in cleaner buses, and latest figures show improvements in the Greater Manchester bus fleet is already helping to improve air quality, with air quality monitoring data for 2023 showing that air pollution has fallen compared to 2022 – and is significantly lower than levels recorded pre-pandemic in 2019.
Five years ago, air quality monitoring data showed 129 locations of nitrogen dioxide exceedance; this has now fallen to 64 sites across the city region.
The revised Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan also includes updates to air quality modelling – the process of forecasting, understanding and managing future levels of air pollution. This includes the latest information on where Bee Network buses are running in the city region, and a correction to modelled emissions of government-funded retrofitted buses.
Leader of Bury Council and Clean Air lead for Greater Manchester, Cllr Eamonn O’Brien, said:
“Poor air quality affects us all and particularly the most vulnerable among us – the young, old and those with health conditions. We have a longstanding commitment to cleaning up our air and Greater Manchester has carried out a tremendous amount of work to get us to a place where we are seeing air quality improvements.
“The latest air quality monitoring data shows a really encouraging trend and indicates that the steps we’ve already taken to invest in cleaner buses through the Bee Network are making real inroads to cleaning up the air we all breathe. And we’ve done this without the hardship to residents and businesses that a charging Clean Air Zone could cause.
“Given some of the changes that have occurred in the last nine months, there was a need to adapt and update our proposals for an investment-led, non-charging GM Clean Air Plan. We’re now in a position where that work has been done and, subject to approvals, we can submit our updated plan to the new government as soon as possible and await their decision.”
Using £86.7 million of Clean Air funding that has already been allocated to Greater Manchester, the plan would use £51.1m for 40 new Zero Emission Buses (ZEBs), depot electrification in Manchester and Bolton, and 77 new Euro VI clean air compliant buses (whereas the previous plan was for 64 new ZEBs and depot electrification in Manchester, Bolton and Middleton).
There is no change to proposals that would see £30.5 million made available to help owners of all eligible hackney carriage and private hire vehicles to upgrade to a cleaner vehicle and £5 million invested in local traffic measures to better manage traffic flow – and reduce nitrogen dioxide levels. An all-electric bus depot and fleet in Stockport is also planned, but will not occur within the timescale required for the Clean Air Plan.
Following approval by Greater Manchester’s Air Quality Administration Committee, the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit will decide on the final Clean Air Plan when it next meets on 1st October.