500,000 CAZ fines go unpaid

OVER half a million fines issued to drivers for misusing Birmingham’s controversial Clean Air Zone over the last two years have not been paid, our investigation has revealed.

Tens of thousands of motorists have been hit with penalties every month for failing to pay the daily fee required for non-compliant vehicles – pocketing the city council millions of pounds.

But not everyone who received fines has paid them, the Post has discovered.

The council was asked to provide details under freedom of information laws of fines over three months old that had not been paid.

This filters out some of the most recent penalties still be being processed.

The city council confirmed a total of 536,552 penalty charge notices had not been paid and had either been cancelled, written off or were outstanding since February 2022.

They did not provide a breakdown of how many fitted into each of those categories.

Bosses did confirm 13,391 cases were successfully appealed at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal after being challenged by irate motorists.

It means, other than fines that are outstanding and still could be paid, they have either been ignored by motorists refusing to pay or cancelled following an appeal or for other reasons.

If the council was to recover none of the cash it would mean losing out on at least £35 million.

The authority said it was unable to provide a figure for how many penalties had been written off, meaning it has given up on recovering money. It said it does not hold information on the monetary amount of penalty charge notices written off, as the value of a penalty charge notice written off depends on what stage of the statutory process a case has reached.

Around 45,000 motorists are still being fined every month on average.

Owners of vehicles that don’t comply must pay the £8 daily charge to pass through the zone.

Those who fail to pay are hit with fines of £120, cut to £60 if paid in 14 days.

The council has made tens of millions of pounds from CAZ over the last three years.

While unpopular with many, it is largely achieving the aim it was intended to.

The average compliance rate is 94.4% as many owners of older vehicles are put off by the prospect of having to pay to pass through.