Motorists who drive into Bristol’s new Clean Air Zone without paying the charge will be let off the £120 fine for the first six weeks of the scheme, as council chiefs try to bed the new system in gently.
Bristol Live understands there will be a ‘Special Payment Offer’ scheme set up by Bristol City Council which will run from the day the Clean Air Zone begins on November 28, through December and into the New Year, for drivers who are caught out by the cameras.
The offer scheme will run until January 8, but from Monday, January 9 - six weeks after the zone goes live - any motorist who drives into the Clean Air Zone with a vehicle that’s liable to pay the charge but hasn't, will have to pay the fine.
Bristol's Clean Air Zone: Everything we know about the scheme a month before it comes into force
The Special Payment Offer scheme will see motorists who have not paid the Clean Air Zone charge be offered the chance to do so within seven days, and not be fined. If the motorist does pay the charge for that journey - which has been set at £9 for a car or small van and £100 for a lorry, bus or van over 3.5 tonnes - then the fine will be cancelled.
But if the motorist doesn’t pay the charge within seven days then they will be liable for a fine - and currently that has been set at £120 per penalty ticket, which reduces to £60 if it’s paid within 14 days. Motorists who are slapped with a fine for driving into the CAZ in a vehicle that is liable for the charge will also have to pay the initial charge too, as well as the fine, so after January 9, a trip into the Clean Air Zone without paying the charge first will cost car drivers £129 or £69.
It’s estimated that between 75-80 per cent of privately-owned vehicles in Bristol won’t be affected at all by the Clean Air Zone because they are newer models and not polluting enough to qualify for the charge. The council has linked to a Government website where drivers can submit their registration number and find out if the CAZ applies to them.
But the quarter or fifth of vehicles that will be liable to pay the CAZ charge is still significant. When the Clean Air Zone cameras that have been set up on the entrances to Bristol city centre from Bath Road in Totterdown to the Portway and Winterstoke Road in Ashton Gate were first switched on in September, the city council tested out the systems by generating and sending out letters to every motorist whose vehicle would be liable for the charge.
In the three weeks in September, almost 100,000 motorists received letters, warning them that from November 28, they will have to pay the Clean Air Zone charge before they make the same trip again.
Read next:
- Where the borders for the scheme will fall street by street
- When will the CAZ charges operate
- Clean Air Zone start date finally announced
- Clean Air Zone fee and how people will be charged
- Bristol Clean Air Zone timeline: the story so far as start date finally announced
- Thousands of drivers 'caught' in Clean Air Zone every day in council test
- Camera error sends Clean Air Zone warning letters to drivers who've never been to Bristol
- Clean Air Zone and underground metro will make cycling safer claim council chiefs
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