More than £60m has been spent so far on Greater Manchester's Clean Air Zone (CAZ) despite the controversial scheme still never having gone ahead. The plans to charge the most polluting taxis, vans, lorries and buses on the city-region's roads were paused earlier this year following a public backlash.
Mayor Andy Burnham said the scheme became 'unworkable' post-pandemic because Covid made the cost of upgrading to cleaner vehicles unaffordable. Local leaders are now calling for all charges to be scrapped, favouring an incentive-led scheme which they argue will be enough to lower pollution.
But they are still waiting for the government to sign off this latest proposal. The whole scheme is supposed to be funded by the government, but Greater Manchester is now facing a multi-million-pound shortfall because it is tied into contracts with no money coming in from charges while it draws up new plans.
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More than £20m has been spent so far on implementing the scheme which was set to start charging some vehicles in May, but remains under review. These costs, which include paying contractor J McCann & Co Limited £120,000 to put up stickers saying 'under review' over outdated signs, will be covered by a £26m government grant for the implementation of the CAZ.
However, according to government guidance, all of the operational costs, such as the contractual and staff costs, were supposed to be covered by the revenues generated from the scheme. This includes the cost of deploying 407 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras for which £3.5m has been paid out to contractor Egis so far.
The ANPR cameras are now in use and gathering data which is informing the ongoing Clean Air Plan review by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM). Police can also request access to the footage which has already been used in two murder investigations, a county lines drugs case and two fatal car crashes.
But keeping the cameras on is costing the city-region £375,000 a month. These day-to-day costs, which were supposed to be covered by the revenue generated from the charges, are now forecast to total £7m by March 2023.
In addition to this, TfGM says it needs another £4m from the government for the additional feasibility work required as part of the Clean Air Plan review. Since 2017, more than £30m has been spent on developing the plans, with all the work carried out funded by the government's Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU).
The government also awarded Greater Manchester £131m worth of grants to help upgrade lorries, coaches, buses, vans, taxis and black cabs. So far, £19.1m has been committed and £11.6m has already been paid out.
But TfGM says it will require another £2m of funding from the government by March 2023 to cover operational elements of the financial support scheme. In total, £62m had been spent on the Clean Air Zone by the end of September.
All of the spending is supposed to be covered by the government, but Greater Manchester is forecasting a funding shortfall of £13m within this financial year. The figures were revealed in a report to councillors on the Greater Manchester Air Quality Administration Committee which is scheduled to meet next week.
The report says TfGM is in 'active discussions' with JAQU over the funding required to fill the gap that would have been covered by the CAZ revenues. A Clean Air GM spokesman said: "Protecting people’s health is a priority and in common with many other areas across the country, Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities have been working on the basis of a process determined by government to develop a plan to clean up our air.
"All costs to date have been covered by, and agreed with, government, with no cost requirement or contribution from local authorities in Greater Manchester. This is a significant and complex challenge and the economic impact of the pandemic on the cost of clean vehicles meant the plan originally agreed by government might not have worked but could have caused financial hardship for local people.
"The case for a new investment-led, non-charging Clean Air Plan has now been submitted to government by Greater Manchester leaders. It seeks to build on the work already done towards cleaning up Greater Manchester’s air through government investment in development of the GM Clean Air Plan, including funding for over 100 cleaner HGVs and more than 700 buses.
"It also outlines how the investment-led approach will continue to clean up the region’s air without creating financial hardship for local people. Greater Manchester’s leaders are awaiting government’s response to this proposal."
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