Legal threat over pollution
MINISTERS threatened to take three Tyneside councils to court if they do not begin implementing new clean air tolls on the area’s roads by the end of this year.
Newcastle, Gateshead, and North Tyneside councils unveiled major plans on Monday for new fees that could hit the region’s drivers – either through a charge for high-polluting vehicles, or via tolls on three busy bridges across the River Tyne.
It has now emerged that the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) wrote to the area’s three council leaders in January to warn that they had missed deadlines to come up with plans to cut pollution and could face legal action if they do not make swift progress.
The authorities were ordered by the Government in July 2017 to reduce emissions in certain hotspots where nitrogen dioxide levels are above legal limits - including part of the Central Motorway and the Coast Road - and were set a deadline of December 2018 to submit their final plans on how to achieve that.
But after that deadline was missed, Dr Therese Coffey MP, Under-Secretary
of State for the Environment, warned that anti-pollution measures must be installed by the end of 2019.
She wrote on January 15 that the councils had “unlawfully failed to comply” with Defra’s directive and that the Government was “concerned that delays risk delivery of air quality benefits for your citizens in the shortest possible time”.
Dr Coffey gave the councils until February 26 to submit an outline business case – a deadline which they are expected to meet, once the plans are ratified by all three authorities’ cabinets next week.
There are two competing charging options being considered by the councils: a clean air zone around the centres of Newcastle and Gateshead in which high-polluting vehicles could be charged either £12.50 or £50 a day to enter; or a toll of £1.70 for all cars and £3.40 for lorries to cross the Tyne, Swing and Redheugh Bridges.
Additional measures could also involve excluding certain vehicles from parts of the city centre or limiting their access to the Central Motorway.
Dr Coffey ordered the councils to begin consulting the public on their plans by March 8 and submit a full business case to the Government by July 12.
She concluded: “I should like to make clear that any delay or noncompliance with these deadlines will result in my being forced to consider legal action against your authorities which may include issuing proceedings without further notice.”
In a fresh statement on Tuesday, Dr Coffey said: “Newcastle, Gateshead and North Tyneside Councils should have acted sooner to improve air quality for their communities.
“They have received Government funding to draw up plans to bring forward compliance with NO2 limits, and at last they are making key decisions.”
Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes said on Monday that Government had “passed the buck to local government and given us very restrained timescales to make very significant and important decisions”.
He added: “Our biggest concern is that the Government’s preferred option could be profoundly damaging to our economy at a really difficult time of economic turbulence.
“We would much prefer to work to improve our public transport network so that people have an excellent range of choices available to them that are affordable.”
The Government is placing restrictions and timescales on the councils that are not helpful, Coun Forbes said, adding: “We won’t shirk our responsibility to improve air quality, but we do recognise that this is not something that can be solved by these three councils – everybody has to play a part.”