The number of people who have signed a petition calling on council chiefs to scrap the Clean Air Zone in Bristol is approaching 2,000, as a fundraising appeal to mount a legal challenge against it begins.
The campaign against the Clean Air Zone in Bristol has snowballed since the scheme went live on November 28, with drivers paying either a £9 or £100 daily charge depending on the size of their vehicle.
The numbers signing the petition have grown rapidly on the Change.org site, and are about to reach 2,000. And campaigners against the CAZ in Bristol are also joining with campaigners against a similar scheme in Manchester, who are raising money to mount a legal challenge against the new charges.
Read next: Bristol Clean Air Zone covers Portway and Cumberland Basin to 'encourage change'
The petition was initially set up by Justyna Kowalska, who travels from her home in Bridgwater to Bristol to work as a carer. She was also behind a Facebook group set up to challenge the CAZ and share information about it, which has a similar number of members.
She said the Clean Air Zone charges won’t work, and is a ‘congestion charge wrapped in shiny environmental paper’. The petition calls on Bristol City Council to scrap the Clean Air Zone charges, but not the Clean Air Zone itself. Ms Kowalska said the Government’s legislation to introduce Clean Air Zones does give local authorities the option of not charging drivers, and Bristol could have followed the lead set by other cities of looking at other ways to improve air quality.
“This petition is not against principles of introducing Clean Air Zones to improve air quality and to reduce air pollution,” the petition said. “It's against chargeable CAZ and putting more taxes, fines, unfair charges on people. Please rethink how paying the above daily charges would affect you, your family, your friends, your business, your life,” the petition added.
Many of the nearly 2,000 people who have signed the petition said they did so because their lives are being disproportionately affected by the charge. One signatory said: “I am sick of more and more costs coming out of my pension. I bought a diesel car out of my retirement sum to last me the rest of my driving days. Two years into retirement, I find that I will have to pay £9 daily to go through CAZ zones. My grandson and his parents live at Avonmouth plus I often use the M5 to go around the town and go south or north. The Portway is not a built up area and we should not be charged for using this ring road,” he added.
When the Clean Air Zone was launched on November 28, Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, said the charges were a requirement from central Government who set Bristol a target on improving air quality that could only be obtained by charging the most polluting vehicles.
He said the council had obtained £42 million to help people transition away from using the more polluting vehicles. "So we've ensured we have a system that cleans up our air, while also supporting those who need support the most,” he said. “We secured a package of £42 million to help people find ways to make their journeys in and around our city that are more sustainable, and to date we have received over 6,000 applications for financial support to change or upgrade people's vehicles.
“We've approved over 1,500 applications for a temporary exemption, and we've given out over 8,000 active travel vouchers, such as bus tickets and Voi e-scooter credits. Now we can't take on the task of delivering clean air alone, and we need everyone in Bristol to play their part, and we still have free vouchers available to help you give these options a go,” he added.
In the days following the launch last week, Bristol’s director of public health, Christina Gray, said the CAZ charges were essential to improving people’s health in Bristol.
“The Clean Air Zone will incentivise green and compliant transport options, but a particular benefit is that these measures can encourage all of us to make changes to the way we travel,” she said “So if we have more people walking or cycling or using clean public transport options, that will absolutely improve public health.
The council has also been backed in its decision to start a CAZ charge by health professionals in the city. Dr Nick Boyd, a paediatric consultant from the University Hospitals Bristol and West NHS Trust, featured in a Bristol City Council video backing the CAZ. He said: “As a paediatric consultant I work with children all the time, and I think it’s really important that we understand the impact on child health when it comes to air pollution and there’s increasing evidence to say it affects the developing brain, and that children who live in areas of high pollution have reduced academic ability and that’s likely to be worse in a city like Bristol because it’s a city with higher air pollution.
“I like to make the analogy with smoking when it comes to air pollution and trying to understand the health impacts. We know how bad smoking is for our health. I’d like to think that within 20 years we’ll look back and realise that air pollution was the modern day equivalent where smoking was 50 years ago, and that we’ve made a massive transformation in the air quality in our cities, and particularly in a city like Bristol."
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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