Millions of pounds racked up in Clean Air Zone fines as Bath councillors say they're open to expansion
The first figures have been revealed showing the impact of Bath's new Clean Air Zone
Last updated 23rd Jun 2021
Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) Council is handing out tens of thousands of pounds worth of fines every day, to drivers who enter Bath's Clean Air Zone (CAZ) and then don't pay the fee.
That's according to new figures revealed this week.
They show 54,000 charges have been paid since the zone launched in March which works out as more than £560,000.
That number though, is only a fraction of the £3.36 million the council is owed in fines.
Twenty-eight-thousand fines of £120 each have been issued.
That means a third of drivers in noncompliant vehicles are failing to pay the daily charge within six days of entering the zone.
For the first eight weeks BANES Council employed “soft enforcement” and said it would only seek to recover the entry charge and not the fine on top, but that period has ended.
Zone manager Cath Brown told scrutiny panel members on June 21: “We’re here to enforce the zone to drive behaviour change, not necessarily penalise people.
“We’ve issued over 28,000 penalty charge notices.
"With the software issue around exemptions some of those have been cancelled.”
Brown also revealed around a fifth of the fines have been issued to BANES residents.
“While the total number of vehicles is going up, the total number of chargeable vehicles is going down, which indicates some emerging trends of behaviour change.”
Around 40,000 vehicles drive into the CAZ each day.
Critics say it is just pushing traffic out of the centre and creating new rat runs.
Private cars are exempt but drivers of non-compliant vans, taxis and private hire vehicles face a £9 daily charge, while those behind the wheel of a bus, coach or HGV have to pay £100 a day.
Anyone who fails to pay the charge within six days of entering the zone will be sent a £120 fine, a sum that is halved if paid within 14 days.
A report on the first three months of the zone will be published late in the summer.
It comes as council bosses say they are open to the idea of expanding it, but it wouldn't be a simple process.
“We would need to have a public consultation and do further modelling and assessment," Brown said.
“It isn’t something that can be done quickly.
"We have to think of the economic and social impacts of changing the boundary including more people in the clean air zone.
“However, we’re open minded to it."