{"id":992109,"date":"2026-05-29T11:14:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/992109\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T11:14:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:14:26","slug":"chaos-as-bungling-uk-council-pays-itself-470k-in-clean-air-fines-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/992109\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaos as bungling UK council pays itself \u00a3470k in ‘clean air’ fines | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UK council has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to itself in fines and daily charges after multiple breaches of its own Clear Air Zone (CAZ) policy. Birmingham<\/a> City Council has paid a total of \u00a3472,353 for breaching the 24-hour policy since it was launched in 2021, according to reports.<\/p>\n

The breaches were linked to non-compliance vehicles, many of them from the waste department, which triggered over 3,000 fines and daily charges. The local authority, which was Labour<\/a>-run until May, said it had been replacing non-compliant vehicles over the last year, despite one in eight still not meeting the zone’s emissions standards.<\/p>\n

The number of charges and fines accumulated were around 20 times the amount paid by any other UK council with CAZ, Low Emission Zone (LEZ) or Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) schemes, the BBC<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

The Birmingham CAZ scheme imposes \u00a38 daily charges on cars, vans and taxis that don’t meet emission standards, with the cost rising to \u00a350 for coaches and HGVs.<\/p>\n

Any drivers who fail to comply with the ANPR-monitored policy face a \u00a3120 fine after six days, reduced to \u00a360 if paid within two weeks.<\/p>\n

Money paid by the local authority in driving penalties goes towards the scheme’s operating costs, with the surplus allocated for environmental or transport schemes – and can’t be put back in its general funds.<\/p>\n

Sharon Power, co-ordinator of Kings Health Food Bank, told the BBC: “The country’s in this state: people are having to choose to heat or eat and [the council is] spending money left, right and centre. It’s absolutely appalling.”<\/p>\n

Birmingham City Council introduced the CAZ scheme in a bid to tackle the dangers posed by air pollution, which it said was responsible for shortening the lives of 900 people every year.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said it had recently created a Vehicle Management Service to “fast-track transition to a modernised, low-emission fleet … driving efficiency, economy, safety and sustainability”.<\/p>\n

They added that only 142 of the 1,170 council-owned vehicles remained non-compliant with the CAZ as of March 31, a number of which were “minibuses related to social services and education provision”.<\/p>\n

The council is also reportedly looking to introduce “eco driving” across its fleet, including monitoring throttle usage, speed, mileage and idling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UK council has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to itself in fines and daily charges after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":992110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,62031,16,15],"class_list":["post-992109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-birmingham","tag-birmingham","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-petrol","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116657577376110894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992109","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=992109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}