Gas-guzzling cars ‘to be banned from city centres by next year’

NEW ‘low emission zones’ banning cars from town centres could be established across Scotland as early as next year.

Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham yesterday urged councils to consider introducing the zones, which could see lorries, vans and even some gas-guzzling cars outlawed in city centres – or being charged to enter.

She also said she hopes the first pilot scheme will be up-andrunning next year. But critics accused the SNP of pursuing an ‘anti-motoring agenda’.

A low emission zone has operated across most of the Greater London area since 2008, which charges larger vehicles – anything from polluting 4x4s to HGVs – if they enter.

Glasgow could become the first city to trial the scheme after Hope Street was last year named as Scotland’s most polluted. The SNP has said it will press ahead with a pilot if it wins the local election in May.

Last month, the Scottish Government published a climate change plan that backed the introduction of the country’s first low emission zones.

Yesterday, Miss Cunningham told MSPs that councils are responsible for coming up with proposals about how the schemes would work.

She said: ‘I would expect there will be applications from local authorities to proceed with low emission zones and we would be grateful to have these discussions with any councils. At the moment, no local authority has actually come forward with anything approaching a proposal. I hope that changes, because our expectation and our hope is that we will have the very first one in place before the end of 2018.’

Councils introducing a lowemission zone would need to draw up guidelines detailing which vehicles will be banned.

Transport for London is already expanding on its exist, ing scheme to introduce an ‘ultra low emission zone’ in 2020, which will mean all gasguzzling cars have to pay a daily charge or face a fine of between £130 and £1,000.

The new Scottish Government climate change strategy also raised the prospect of introducing a ‘workplace parking levy’, where companies with a car park have to pay extra tax.

A similar scheme operates in where firms that have more than ten parking spaces pay £375 for each.

Maurice Golden, environment spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said low emission zones were a ‘step too far’.

He said: ‘Punishing hardworking families who just want to go about their daily business is not the approach we should be taking. The SNP has already been accused of pursuing an anti-motoring agenda, and this development does nothing to help that image.’

The Alliance of British Drivers has also previously opposed the introduction of low emission zones in Scotland.

Last month, Susan Aitken, leader of the SNP group on Glasgow City Council, said the city was the ‘ideal candidate’ to pilot such a scheme.

She said Glasgow has some of the most polluted streets in Scotland, with bad air quality linked to 300 deaths a year.

‘Anti-motoring agenda’