Motorists cough up £627M in Clean Air zones

London launched its Ultra Low Emission Zone in 2019, initially covering inner London, before, expanding to cover all 32 boroughs by 2023. In its five years of operation the capital has received over £386 million in fines during this period, with over 108,000 penalty charge notices being issued each month to drivers.

Birmingham introduced its clean air zone in June 2021 and over a 48 month period, drivers in the city have received over 2 million fines, averaging out at nearly 48,000 per month. This equates to fines of over £100 million, or nearly £2.2 million per month.

Here are the cities that have seen the most decrease in penalty charge notices:   *   Dundee – 52%   *   Edinburgh – 48%   *   Aberdeen – 35%   *   Glasgow – 35%   *   Birmingham – 33%   *   Bristol – 28%

Bristol Introduced its clean air zone in 2022 and has issued fines totalling over £125 million, or an average of £3.2 million per month. Despite receiving fewer fines overall, Bristol drivers pay £1.2 million more on average per month than drivers in Birmingham.

This suggests a significant presence of repeat offenders in Bristol, which raises the average fine amount from £60 up to £960.

Clean Air Zones (CAZ) and Low Emission Zones (LEZ) are designed to improve air quality, by charging drivers of high-polluting vehicles that enter into a specific area. London was the first city to introduce one of these zones, with a number of other cities following suit in recent years.