Questions over Bristol Clean Air Zone fees as figures show tens of thousands written off

An opposition councillor has questioned why anyone should pay

Bristol's Clean Air Zone was introduced in November 2022
Author: Alex Seabrook for Local Democracy Reporting Service / James DiamondPublished 26th Jan 2024

There's questions over why anyone should pay Bristol's Clean Air Zone fees, as figures show 250 fines were written off every day on average, during its first year.

The soft-touch enforcement at the start of the scheme has led to questions from Green councillors about “why would anybody pay” the daily £9 fee.

Fines are issued to drivers of non-compliant vehicles who don’t pay the fee but enter the zone, but so far 16 per cent of these have been written off.

Since the Clean Air Zone was launched in November 2022, Bristol City Council wrote off 91,125 penalty charge notices.

The council writes off a fine when the DVLA cannot find details of drivers, or if enforcement agents are unable to trace the driver or recover the debt.

Council bosses say most of these happened at the start of the scheme’s operation, but they have been pressed for evidence.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, January 24, Green Councillor Christine Townsend said: “There’s over 91,000 that were written off.

"The suggestion I had is to have the write-offs split up into maybe three-monthly sections, so that we can be confident that the numbers of write-offs have gone down.

"Because if the enforcement isn’t there, why would people pay?

“How is it that you expect people to pay if there are huge numbers of charges that have been written off?

"It’s 250 journeys that have been written off every day that the CAZ has been in existence.”

Only 49 per cent of the 570,000 fines issued in the first year of the Clean Air Zone were actually paid.

Just under a third remain “open” meaning they haven’t been paid yet, while six per cent were successfully appealed and then cancelled.

Council bosses say they started with a “soft enforcement period” using discretion with drivers, but have since tightened up.

Another issue was some cameras weren’t working property at the beginning of the scheme, meaning some drivers were incorrectly fined.

This year, a much higher proportion of fines are expected to be paid compared to last year.

Labour Cllr Don Alexander, cabinet member for transport, said: “Dealing with PCNs isn’t something that’s new to us, we deal with them all the time because of parking and bus lanes.

"There’s nothing unusual here, perhaps quite a large number, but I don’t know why you would advocate for a special or particular procedure.

“We have enforcement for parking offences in car parks and on double yellow lines, and also in bus lanes.

"It’s something we do all the time, it’s just business as usual for us.”

Deputy mayor Craig Cheney added: “The majority were non-UK vehicles that the DVLA doesn’t have on its records, so that makes it particularly difficult.”

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