Green Party. The Green Party 5 point plan to clean up our air WEST OF ENGLAND

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1 WEST OF ENGLAND The Green Party 5 point plan to clean up our air DISCOURAGE polluting vehicles from entering OUR TOWNS & CITIES promote walking, cycling & public transport Clean up the bus fleet support taxis to meet clean emission standards promote electric vehicles and car clubs Green Party for the common good Air Quality Improvement Plan for the West of England Combined Authority

2 Where are we now? What are the problems with our local air? The biggest problem our local air quality is that health-damaging nitrogen oxides exceed safe and legal limits. Thesepollutants come mainly from motorised vehicles, with older diesel engines a particular source of the problem. This year over 30 of the 60 air quality monitoring stations in Bristol were showing NO2 pollution levels above legal limits. In 2013 (the latest available figures) legal limits for NO2 pollution were exceeded at 28 sites in Bath in 2013 and at 3 sites in Keynsham, so it is a challenge throughout our region. Particulate level pollution did not exceed legal limits, but even at lower limits particulates (PM2.5 and PM10) are known to be health-damaging. How serious a problem is this? There are at least 120 premature deaths a year in Bath and North East Somerset, 300 deaths a year in Bristol and 150 deaths a year in South Gloucestershire, resulting from particulate and nitrogen oxide pollution. Particulates and NOx have been strongly linked with heart disease and respiratory conditions including asthma, emphysema and bronchitis. Air pollution affects us all, but some people are at greater health risk than others, particularly children, older people, people living close to busy roads, asthma sufferers and poorer people who are more likely to be living in areas of higher pollution. What is being done to address these problems currently? EU law has established the legal limits for particulates and nitrogen oxides. These legal limits will remain in place after Brexit. Nationally the Government is committed to ensuring that air pollution is at safe and legal levels. Although the Government has established a national framework of Clean Air Zones which introduce restrictions for more polluting vehicles, in November 2016 the High Court ruled that the Government s proposed approach was inadequate. The evidence showed that without faster, more appropriate action it would be many years before air pollution was within legal limits. The Government has now committed to changing its approach to improve air quality faster. At the same time as the High Court ruling Bristol Green Party proposed a motion to Bristol City Council in support of Clean Air Zones and other relevant measures. This motion was passed with all party support. The public also showed their support through the Let Bristol Breathe and Let Bath Breathe campaigns with over 4,000 people signing petitions. Following the successful passing of the Bristol Clean Air motion DEFRA is now providing consultancy funding to evaluate the implementation of Clean Air Zones. Bristol has secured funding of over 500,000 for this consultancy project. Additionally the Bristol Mayor has established an Air Quality Mayoral Working Group, tasked with setting and co-ordinating an overall approach for the improvement of local air quality. The new West of England Combined Authority will have legal powers to establish Clean Air Zones, but it remains to be defined how the powers of the new authority and the constituent local authorities will overlap with regards to these responsibilities. Where do we want to get to? We all want to be able to breathe clean, healthy air, knowing that are children are growing up with healthy lungs. Our local Green Parties are working to ensure that air pollution in the West of England Combined Authority area is at safe and legal levels as fast and effectively as possible. Where charging mechanisms are introduced as part of this approach, Greens believe that it is an acceptable to use monies raised as an opportunity to fund cash-strapped local authorities, particularly for public transport and active travel infrastructure.

3 How do we get there? Bristol Green Party has five key strands to its policy approach DISCOURAGE the most polluting vehicles from entering OUR TOWNS & CITIEs This is both the most important and most difficult area to get right in order to reduce air pollution to acceptable levels, because it involves a range of potential charging mechanisms. 1. Clean air Zones Agree timings of proposed implementations of Clean Air Zones (CAZs) Greens believes that CAZs need to be introduced by 2020 at the latest for private vehicles. Local authorities need to communicate the nature of the proposed CAZ plans by mid 2018 at the latest to give drivers reasonable notice so they can better plan for any car purchases or sales. Appropriate cost-effective CAZ models of compliance and enforcement need to introduced Data capture mechanisms for compliance and infringement with Clean Air Zone rules need to be thought through. The Government s proposed approach for Clean Air Zone approved vehicles is based on EU engine types (Euro 4, Euro 5, Euro 6 - in general the higher the Euro engine type, the less polluting the vehicle). Local authorities will enforce CAZ rules through their powers to fine non-compliant vehicles. It is likely that Automatic Number Plate recognition will be the right technical solution for CAZs and when introducing them appropriate future proofing considerations need to be taken into account such as ensuring that they could be suitable for congestion charging purposes. Agree geography In broad terms, areas where air quality breaches legal limits in the WECA area need to be incorporated within CAZs. Simple modelling needs to take place as to appropriate flexible geographies for Clean Air Zones. Vehicle classes The Government s proposed approach for Clean Air Zones can become significantly more effective where Clean Air Zones restrict the usage of older diesel cars and where they do not restrict the use of these vehicles, air pollution is unlikely to be within legal limits for many years, although the effectiveness of different approaches will vary from area to area within the UK. 2. Other Approaches to Restrict Polluting Vehicles There is a danger that Clean Air Zones are the only policy tool that are used to restrict the most polluting vehicles from entering areas where air quality is of an unacceptable standard. The Green Party believes that policy tools that are being used elsewhere in the UK would be appropriate to use in WECA. These include: a) Nottingham City Council has in place a workplace parking levy that raises over 9m in revenue. In Nottingham workplace car parking places have a levy charged on them of 375 per year, payable by the employer where the employer has more than 10 car park spaces. NHS employee parking places are excluded from this levy. A 2011 detailed study by Atkins Consultancy indicates that the revenue potential if Bristol were to put in place a workplace parking levy is of a similar level. A workplace parking levy could significantly support the reduction of pollution and congestion in the city. Dispensations or reduced charges could be introduced for electric and other lower emission vehicles. b) Westminster City Council is introducing a pilot of higher parking meter charges for diesel vehicles. Any similar approach in WECA for cars should perhaps only apply to pre Euro 6 diesel vehicles.

4 c) Islington Council introduced in 2015 residents parking charges for diesel vehicles that are 100 per year higher than for petrol vehicles. Merton Council operates a similar scheme. Any similar approach in WECA for cars should perhaps only apply to pre Euro 6 diesel vehicles. d) Freight consolidation freight consolidation works most appropriately in conjunction with Clean Air Zones and congestion charging so that there is an appropriate financial incentive in terms of cost incentives for distributors to use freight consolidation services. e) Pollution hotline - it should be possible to report smoking and particularly polluting vehicles for follow up. Additionally WECA could explore the permissibility of introducing a carpark parking levy for pre Euro 6 diesel vehicles. This could apply for example to NCP car parks, Cabot Circus, Cribbs Causeway and dedicated Bath retail parking. Calculations of the pollution reduction that would result and the revenue that this would raise could be incorporated in consultancy projects that are currently being commissioned. The benefit of the proposals outlined above are that they could probably be more speedily introduced than Clean Air Zones and they would have an additional powerful nudge pressure on car purchasing habits of local drivers. The more that these policies could be introduced at a co-ordinated regional level the more likely they are to be successful. We need investment in active travel so that people who currently use cars can get around by walking, cycling and using less polluting public transport wherever possible. Exercise is the wonder drug and the more we can introduce active approaches into our travel routines the cleaner our air will be and the healthier we will become. The introduction of residents parking in Bristol has contributed to reducing the number of commuters coming into the city and increasing the use of buses by 25% in the last two years. There are proposed cuts in Bristol and Bath in the financial support for subsidised buses, although it is thought that these might be achieved without a severe impact on services. It promote walking, cycling & public transport is being proposed that Princes Street Bridge in Bristol is being re-opened to private cars when there are serious concerns that it will lead to a worsening of air quality in the city centre. Clean up the bus fleet The introduction of a Clean Air Zone framework will impact the pollution standards of the bus fleet. In the region First Bus is swiftly improving the engine standards of its bus fleet, eliminating the older most polluting vehicles and replacing them with 1) Euro 6 standard diesel vehicles with stop start. 2) Compressed natural gas buses 3) Hybrid buses with geo tagging. The cost of 3) is very significantly higher than 1) and 2) and the batteries for a single bus cost 30,000 to 40,000 with only a 5 year guarantee. In terms of public policy we would advise that it is preferable to have more older buses replaced with 1) and 2) than it is to insist on the the less affordable hybrids resulting in the replacement of fewer of the older vehicles. Older buses can also be retrofitted with pollution reducing technology.

5 support taxis to meet clean emission standards Currently all Bristol s new taxis need to meet at least Euro 6 emission standards, and the city s older, more polluting taxis are seeing phased withdrawl of their licence to operate. From 2018 new licences for private hire vehicles will not be offered for diesel vehicles registered in Bristol. Neighbouring authorities will also need to raise their standards for taxi licensing if we are to achieve desired improvements in air quality throughout the region. promote electric vehicles and car clubs Bristol has introduced charging points for a number of vehicles and plans are in place to roll out significant increased numbers of charging points. Further financial encouragement is required in order to achieve a higher level of uptake of low emission vehicles. A major Government funded project (Go Ultra Low (GUL)) is under way to promote the uptake of electric vehicles. A status report on this will be published shortly by BCC. Summary from DEFRA s May 2016 report on the best measures to reduce NOx In May 2016 DEFRA concluded that greater reductions in NOx and improvements in air quality may occur when a number of measures are integrated and packaged together. For example, a low emission zone designed to target the higher polluting vehicles can be supported by a package of complementary measures. Such complementary measures can include: improvements in walking, cycle, bus and train facilities; traffic management and pricing mechanisms (to discourage, for example, zone peripheral parking, and peripheral cut through routes); and incentives to encourage uptake to meet vehicle emission compliance such as retrofit or scrappage schemes. If designed appropriately, such measures not only reduce air pollutant emissions but can also provide climate change benefits as well as wider benefits such as noise reduction, congestion alleviation and economic development. In the approach that the Green Party has taken in the West of England region we are advocating a package of measures to maximise our chances of improving air quality in acceptable time frames. Equalities issues relating to proposed air quality improvement approaches The NICE December 2016 guidelines for Consultation on air quality state that any reduction in air pollution is likely to help tackle health inequalities. But at the same time, vulnerable groups are less likely to be able to afford a new vehicle with low emissions and could be disadvantaged by any changes to restrict older, more polluting vehicles. Overall, NICE agreed that removing older vehicles from the road would reduce health inequalities, provided disadvantaged groups could get to the places and services they need. The Clean Air Zone Euro engine management framework allows pro-equality policies to be pursued. Specifically clean air zone charges for cars will apply to pre-euro 6 diesels ie pre Autumn 2014 and to pre-euro 4 petrol vehicles ie pre Because of this difference, potentially affected drivers of ten year old diesel vehicles would have good notice of charges which might affect them and they could sell their diesel vehicle and replace it with a petrol engine vehicle at a similar price, which would not be liable to any clean air zone charges. Drivers of affected commercial vehicles could potentially experience greater costs in upgrading to CAZ compliant vehicles, but it would not be unreasonable with appropriate notice that their business could bear the costs of this.

6 Further areas for discussion and policy development Promotion of diesel vehicles Part of the reason for the problem with air quality in urban areas is the dash for diesel. Because of the higher fuel efficiency of diesel vehicles they result in lower climate changing carbon emissions. Although petrol engined vehicles have improved significantly in fuel efficiency terms, diesels still have lower carbon emissions than comparable performance petrol engines. Consequently policy makers need to be cautious that they are not inappropriately restricting appropriate use of diesel vehicles, now that Euro 6 diesel vehicles have so significantly reduced NO2 emissions. However the Euro 6 diesel car engine standard are currently unfit for purpose, because although the latest standard has resulted in overall reductions in NO2 emissions the tests take into account real world driving - one consequence of this is that small Euro 6 compliant diesel vehicles can emit the same level of NO2 emissions as a large lorry. Solid fuel burning Concern has been expressed at air pollution resulting from increased use of solid fuel burning. This primarily impacts on particulates, which are exceptionally rarely detected in the Bristol and WECA region at levels above legal limits. Environmentally minded consumers have been encouraged to purchase wood burners because wood is a renewable resource that appropriately managed can be carbon neutral. However local authorities need to better control the use of older non HETA multi-fuel burners, prohibit the sale of non-smokeless coal in urban areas and more actively prohibit the use of open wood and non-smokeless fuel fires when air quality is poor. Linked issues Congestion Congestion is a linked but separate issue to air quality. It has a high impact on quality of life in the WECA region and reduces the potential level of economic activity. It will be the focus of separate BGP campaigns and policy approaches. Carbon emissions All local authorities in the WECA region are committed to the significant reduction of climate changing carbon emissions. #LetBristolBreathe #LetBathBreathe