‘I may as well set fire to my van’

A woman who splashed out £10,500 on a new van has been fined after discovering it was not compliant with emissions standards for the Bath clean air zone.

Teresa Hall, 54, who lives in Widcombe, used to own an old ex-post Office van that would not have been compliant when the zone came into effect on March 15.

She bought a Vauxhall Vivaro van for £10,500, which was supposed to meet Euro 5 requirements for pollution – the standard previously set for the zone. But a last minute change to pollution regulations by the Government at the beginning of March meant it was no longer compliant.

She was fined £120 for driving into Bath on March 16, although this was later cancelled by Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Mrs Hall is now stuck with the van and facing the prospect of further fines if she continues to enter the zone.

She said: “I had checked the rules before the zone started and put in my new van’s licence plate number, to be told it was all fine. That is why I was so surprised to get a letter from the council saying that my van actually wasn’t compliant and that I would have been fined £120 for driving it into Bath.”

She said she was left with two weeks to find another vehicle. Grants of up to £4,500 would still leave her “massively out of pocket”.

“I may as well set fire to the thing at this point,” she said.

Mrs Hall, who said she supported the clean air zone, has lived in Bath for 26 years and uses the van for private use. But she said she had been left doing “loops around Bath” to visit her family.