“GM has dodged a bullet and we will be better off as a city region as a result!”
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has responded to the Government’s decision paving the way for an investment led clean air zone in Greater Manchester.
Responding, FSB Development Manager for the GM city region, Robert Downes, said: “This is news most of us had been expecting for some time, but that doesn’t make it any less welcome.
“The plan for a charging clean air zone is now thankfully in the bin where it belongs; it was always the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. Common sense has prevailed, and the new Government clearly agrees with Andy Burnham’s revised approach. So do we.”
“This is the rational way forward and aligns with what FSB has long campaigned on. It means GM gets where it needs to be on pollution reduction without hammering the smallest businesses and deliberately harming the regional economy.
He added: “There will be businesses in a number of big cities right across the country where clean air schemes that hurt businesses and drive up costs for everyone, have been rushed in, where GM stepped back. Greater Manchester has dodged a bullet and we will be better off as a city region as a result.
“We know NOx pollution levels in GM have been falling year-on-year since the middle of the last decade, and FSB’s argument all along was that there had to be a better way than simply hitting businesses with a new and regressive tax, especially as so many simply couldn’t have afforded to upgrade their vehicle to avoid the charge.
“Today’s announcement is tacit admission that the very few NOx exceedances in GM affecting just a handful of very busy inner-city areas were largely caused by very old, very polluting buses and taxis and money is now rightly being channelled to modernising those fleets.”