{"id":991168,"date":"2026-05-29T00:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T00:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/991168\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T00:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T00:17:17","slug":"birmingham-city-council-fines-itself-470000-for-breaking-clean-air-zone-rules-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/991168\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham City Council fines itself \u00a3470,000 for breaking Clean Air Zone rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birmingham City Council<\/a> has paid more than \u00a3470,000 to itself in fines<\/a> after its own vehicles<\/a> have been breaking the council\u2019s Clean Air Zone policy.<\/p>\n

Since the scheme, known as Caz, began in the city centre five years ago, non-compliant vehicles belonging to the council\u2019s fleet have resulted in 3,262 daily charges and fines amounting to \u00a3472,253.<\/p>\n

Clean Air Zones charge for vehicles that do not comply with minimum emissions standards, while others use measures for improving air quality, such as retrofitting certain vehicles or rerouting traffic.<\/p>\n

The daily charge for cars, vans and taxis is \u00a38 in Birmingham, and \u00a350 for HGVs and coaches unless a valid exemption is in place. Anyone who fails to pay within six days after entering the zone faces a \u00a3120 fine, which is reduced to \u00a360 if paid within 14 days.<\/p>\n

The data, obtained by the BBC<\/a> using the Environmental Information Regulations, did not specify if the council paid higher fines for late payment over all of the five years. The most recent fines in the past financial year covered by council purchase cards were all paid by City Operations.<\/p>\n

\"Clean<\/p>\n

Clean air zones include measures aimed at boosting air quality (PA Archive)<\/p>\n

The majority of the vehicles that were hit with the daily charges were from the waste department, despite a bin strike in the city since January 2025.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said the council has \u201chistorically owned and operated a large fleet of over 1,100 vehicles\u201d, many non-compliant with Caz and thus subject to paying the daily fee.<\/p>\n

But a replacement programme over the last year has reduced this number to 142, all under review and \u201con track to be removed from the fleet\u201d so that \u201cthe entire waste, street cleansing and grounds fleet is now fully compliant with the Clean Air Zone\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a Birmingham City Council spokesperson added: \u201cFurther changes have also been made to other vehicles which have either been decommissioned or replaced with electric alternatives.<\/p>\n

“The council\u2019s policy is that drivers<\/a> are responsible for paying any fines they incur themselves using their own vehicles for work, unless there is evidence that the penalty resulted from a council-related issue or error.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birmingham City Council has paid more than \u00a3470,000 to itself in fines after its own vehicles have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":991169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,984,748,25220,275241,393,275242,4884,16,15,12146],"class_list":["post-991168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-birmingham","tag-birmingham","tag-birmingham-city-council","tag-britain","tag-clean-air-zone","tag-clean-air-zones","tag-england","tag-environmental-information-regulations","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vehicles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116654995130201917","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/991169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}