Summary: With the new £60 fines set to come into force in Glasgow within days, new evidence has shown that Scotland’s cities do not have a problem with air quality. The backlash against the SNP’s low emission zones in Scotland’s four largest cities is growing, with new evidence showing that air quality is ‘excellent’.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee all have LEZs in place to ban older cars from the city centre, with Glasgow set to start levelling automatic £60 fines on June 1. The other three cities will follow suit in just 12 months.
The Scottish Daily Express has already revealed that air quality in central Glasgow has been dramatically improved this year, with campaigners putting it down to cleaner, greener buses.
READ MORE: 20,000 Glasgow city centre residents live INSIDE the LEZ… and have 12 months to sell their old cars
Now research by the Mail on Sunday has discovered a similar picture in the other cities as well, with official analysis at every monitoring site in the LEZs showing a ‘green’ rating for harmful particles.
Crucially, nitrogen dioxide levels – the main pollutant cited by Glasgow and Edinburgh councils as the reason for introducing their LEZs – also fell within legal limits last year in all four city centres.
Commercial weather monitoring sites, meanwhile, rate the air quality in all the locations involved as ‘excellent’.
One environmental expert, who did not wish to be named, told the paper: “Measures taken over the past decade or so, such as the introduction of electric buses, have led to pollution targets being met and indeed exceeded. The introduction of further LEZs now is, therefore, pointless.”
And Colin Smith, chief executive of the Scottish Wholesale Association, said: “The LEZs are affecting our members who can’t get costly replacement vehicles and end-users such as pubs, clubs and restaurants in city centres all need supplied. “If emission levels are already low, then the question would have to be, do we need this? ‘We would like a pause on implementation of LEZs to give businesses further time to adjust.”
Glasgow City Council said: “It is likely a large part of the drop in air pollution levels is due to the improvement in emissions from the city’s bus fleet given the introduction of the first phase of our LEZ in 2018.”
Other Related Articles from Scottish Daily Express:
- ‘Terrifying’ Glasgow LEZ must be stopped as SNP council told ‘it’s not too late’
- Glasgow’s SNP green car scheme set to hammer homelessness charity with dated van
Chart Showing levels of Nitrogen Dioxide in areas around Edinburgh – all below 40micrograms limit.
Since air pollution is stated as the major reason for introcuding Low Emission Zones with fines, we could all be reasonably asking the Council to provide a list of areas in Edinburgh that are regularly found to be above national air pollution targets.