Taxi Driver Online

Newcastle's clean air zone 'makes no sense' say taxi drivers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-64254150

Some private hire taxi drivers say a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) in Newcastle "makes no sense".

Taxis that do not meet clean air standards are going to be charged £12.50 a day from 30 January.

Private cars will be exempt but older taxis and lorries, buses and coaches will have to pay for crossing into the zone across most of the city centre.

One driver who sold his taxi questioned how it could be driven for free in the CAZ zone by its new private owner.

Neil Atkinson, who has been a taxi driver for three years, said he has spent £2,000 replacing his old car with an electric one.

"The car I've just had to sell, which is now privately owned, can be driven in the city for free. It makes no sense," he said.

"The idea is to make the air clean, but it's the same car I would've had to pay for as a taxi driver."

Newcastle City Council said: "As this is a category C Clean Air Zone (CAZ C), charges apply to buses, coaches, taxis (Hackney Carriages and private hire vehicles), heavy goods vehicles and vans that don't meet the required emissions standards.

"Charging for non-compliant vans will start in July 2023.

"Private cars, motorcycles, mopeds, newer vehicles and those with zero emissions will not be charged."

The authority said the introduction of a CAZ C followed a legal order issued by government to reduce "illegal levels of air pollution caused by traffic in certain areas".

David Lawrie, director of the National Private Hire and Taxi Association, said the rules would also see taxi drivers having to pay the charge when they were not working, if they used their licensed vehicle to travel into the city centre.

Mr Lawrie said: "The fact remains it's a licensed vehicle and the purpose of its use is irrelevant."

The council, which has denied the daily charges are a tax-raising scheme, said financial support was available for affected drivers and business owners.

A Newcastle taxi driver for 11 years, Graeme Close branded the scheme "a mess", saying he had not yet heard about a grant application he submitted in November.

"The car I'm driving at the moment is two months too old to drive into the city centre without getting charged so I have to replace it with a new vehicle," he said.

"I'd have to get finance and I don't want to tie myself to a £300 to £400 monthly loan payment, and to buy a compliant car I'm looking at having to spend between £12,000 - £15,000 and I haven't got that."

Both Newcastle and Gateshead councils said grant applications were "being processed as quickly as possible" and anyone who had submitted one and had not received a response, or was upgrading their vehicle through the grants process, would be given a "temporary 120-day exemption from any CAZ charges".

The authorities said 1,300 applications for financial support to upgrade or replace older vehicles had been submitted so far and a £50 seven-day pass was available to lower costs for taxis.

Of course it's a cash raising exercise, it's a small city next to the sea, it's westerly winds disperse its car emissions out to sea within a few minutes.

It's also the case where by the time you read the new CAZ warning signs your already to late because the inner city dual carriage way doesnt allow you to turn round until your within the zone.

What has he bought then, one of those granny scooters?

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IDFIMH

Hi all. Not posted for a while.

The CAZ is obviously a farce up here in Newcastle.
Council makes millions in profit last year from council car parking charges.
PH and taxis don’t park. So not earning them money.
What better way to squeeze a driver to death than to take £12.50 per day from the wage they attempt to earn.

I take 4 punters into town for lunch. 4 punters who would take their cars and pollute the earth to the point of stopping humans breathe clean air. 1 car, 4 punters. I’m saving the planet. Let’s screw them over for saving the planet.

I have lived all over the UK. The Newcastle borough council is the most shambolic, corrupt, disgraceful organisation I have lived under.

How the hell can joe public still drive to town but a taxi van or bus can’t.

Hi WestgateLad - easy targets, innit?

Could be worse, though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in likes of Glasgow and other Scottish cities there's a complete ban rather than a charging scheme in the LEZ area coming into force in the summer, so if it's a diesel then you'll need Euro6 or you can't enter the area at all.

And it applies to all vehicles, thus including members of the public driving for work or shopping

Anyways...

Taxi boss hits out at 'bizarre' Newcastle Clean Air Zone charges and warns fares likely to increase

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/no ... e-26021543

The boss of Blueline Taxis has alleged that the new anti-pollution tolls due to come into force at the end of this month are a “serious threat to public safety”


Image: Newcastle Chronicle

Newcastle’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) will force taxi drivers out of the trade and push up fares for passengers, a major Tyneside firm has claimed.

The boss of Blueline Taxis has alleged that the new anti-pollution tolls due to come into force at the end of this month are a “serious threat to public safety” and risk turning Newcastle city centre into a “ghost town”. Taxis that do not meet environmental standards will be charged £12.50 per day under the CAZ, which starts on January 30.

Some other high-polluting vehicles face daily fees of up to £50, though private cars will not be charged at all. The scheme, which is being introduced after local councils were ordered by the Government to cut illegal levels of emissions, has caused major disquiet among the region’s taxi trade.

Ian Shanks, managing director of Wallsend-based Blueline, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the design and implementation of the system were “bizarre”, adding: “They lack clarity, ignore the detrimental implications on the wider public, and [are] ultimately not an effective strategy to achieve clean air.”

Hundreds of deaths on Tyneside every year have been linked to poor air quality and Newcastle and Gateshead councils say they were unable to find any method that would cut toxic emissions faster than a CAZ. But Mr Shanks believes many taxi drivers will not want to take on the financial responsibility of either paying the daily charges or buying a new, compliant vehicle, and believes there is “every likelihood of fares having to go up to cover the higher costs”.

The private hire boss added: “The impact on the public is huge. Taxis are the only transport network operating and keeping our city ticking night and day, 24/7 – and, by reducing access to transport and making it more costly, it poses a serious threat to public safety – especially in the night-time economy when taxis are the only form of regulated transport.

“Will businesses in the city centre survive as access is reduced? Although I’m sure this is not what was intended, should the CAZ kill off the city centre a clean air zone might genuinely be created as the city will have become a ghost town.”

The Blueline chief complained that his company had not been given full details until last week of a grant scheme being run by Newcastle City Council to help drivers upgrade to cleaner vehicles, with payments of up to £3,500 available for taxi drivers. And Mr Shanks claims those grants effectively have “little purpose” due to restrictions on how they must be spent.


Image: Newcastle Chronicle

A spokesperson for Newcastle and Gateshead councils said: “We are introducing a Clean Air Zone to improve air quality, protect everyone’s health and clean up our environment. We’ve held a number of meetings with representatives of the taxi trade to understand and respond to their concerns.

“Financial support and temporary exemptions are available to help taxi and private hire drivers who are affected by the CAZ, including temporary exemptions for anyone who has submitted a grant application or is in the process of upgrading their vehicle through the grants process. Following representation from stakeholders, we have taken extra time to discuss the grants scheme with them to ensure it best meets their needs as far as we possibly can.

“The grant levels for all non-compliant vehicles are set by Government and, although we have requested additional funding to enable larger grants to be offered, this has unfortunately not been provided. In addition to grant funding, there is a local discount scheme available to taxi drivers with non-compliant vehicles in Newcastle, Gateshead and North Tyneside, who will be able to apply for a permit allowing travel into the zone over seven consecutive days for a charge of £50 instead of the standard £12.50 daily charge.”

That is what it should be here from the end of the month. Instead of taking money from people trying to make an HONEST living.

How old are these cabs in Newcastle? and what is the euro standard required for petrol and diesel powered PHV/HC (looked but couldn't find info) I've just checked my PHV on the government website https://www.gov.uk/clean-air-zones which tells you if you will be charged and for how much, for going into the CAZ zones that are up and running and due to come into force very soon, and my 13 year old gen 3 Prius licensed PHV is free to use in all of them, except Bradford which is £7.50

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now a licensed hackney driver

AGabbyCabbie, I don't think that Government website is much use for plated HCs and PHVs, because it seems to assume you're just a private motorist, and to that extent different rules apply. So, for example, in Newcastle private motorists are exempt, while plated PHVs and HCs will incur the charge unless they comply with the necessary spec.

So, as the chap in the article at the top of the thread says, a car that would incur the charge as a PHV would be exempt if it's not plated. But the Govt website you mention would just assume it's plated neither HC nor PHV.

So according to the website my Euro5 Passat incurs no charge in Newcastle, because the website doesn't know it's plated as an HC. But because it's an HC, in reality it would incur the charge

And this is the basic spec for the Newcastle HCs and PHVs to avoid the charge, which is Euro 6 for diesel, and I'm Euro5, so would be charged.

On the other hand, in Glasgow I'll be totally banned from entering the LEZ there by this summer

(I think the Government website only covers the English cities.)

And, as the graphic above makes clear in the case of Newcastle, the petrol standard is generally easier to comply with than the diesel standard in terms of vehicle age.

This is the link to the full site dealing with the Newcastle charges:

https://www.breathe-cleanair.com/

I have wrote about this a lot on Taxi Driver Online and will do so again.

This is blatant in-your-face council stupidity for all to see.

The hypocrisy and twisted logic of these degenerate policies shows what this is all about. These policies make no sense because they are not supposed to. It has nothing to do with environmental concerns and more about trying to control peoples lives and skim from the peasants in the process.

If councils wanted to be "green" they would encourage people to keep their old cars and discourage purchasing new vehicles for as long as possible.

That would help reduce pollution.

The amount of energy and natural resources used to produce a car is extensive and forcing people to sell perfectly workable vehicles for new or newer "lower emission" vehicles or whatever is stupidity at its finest.

We should be using things for longer to get as much life out of them as possible before replacing them which should be done when they start breaking and become uneconomical when it costs more to repair them than to purchase a new or newer replacement. That would be efficient.

Governments should be encouraging manufacturers to design and build products to last a long time instead of the cheap Chinese knock offs that need to be replaced after 1 or 2 years.

That would help reduce pollution and minimize using precious resources.

But no. They want us to keep buying newer models where resources are getting wasted unnecessarily.

EVs are not green. They require 500,000 tons (yes tons) of Earth dug out of the ground to make just 1 battery. 1 battery that will in all likelihood have to be replaced within 10 - 15 years depending on usage.

They are impractical for anything other than doing less than 100 - 150 miles per day and are way more expensive opposed to ICE vehicles.

These policies will backfire.

For now we have to just put up with the madness until all hell breaks loose.

I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you're saying about this, RTD, but I mean this?


500,000 tons is about 25,000 truckloads of earth. Or about the weight of 50 Eiffel towers

If your claim was true each battery would probably cost millions of pounds. Or something like that.

A quick Google suggests your stat is based on a claim that the figure was 500,000 lbs, so your number exaggerates the original claim by a factor of 2,000

And even the 500,000 lbs claim is said to be grossly exaggerated. Can't be bothered wading through it all, and of course there will be exaggeration and bias on both sides of the argument.

But I'd bet you a £zillion that the 500,000 tons claim is ludicrously exaggerated. And, as I've said billions of times, DO NOT EXAGGERATE

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... ing-and-t/

I’m sure if I hear correctly. You need to drive an electric car over 100k before it is carbon neutral.

I cave an EU6 engine. I will get another car once this one is finished. But I feel for lads scraping by with 16 plates etc. £12.50 is a massive chunk of earnings per day.

Especially as fares are £3 flags. £1.70 a mile.