As Birmingham becomes the latest city to announce plans to ban the use of private cars in the city centre, could your home town be next to make the bold move?
Britain’s second city looks set to revolutionise car travel through the next decade with cars forced to use the city’s ring road and only allowed to travel through the heart of Birmingham if they intend to use the city centre facilities and shopping. Most cars will travel to the city centre using the existing network of underground tunnels.
The Birmingham Clean Air Zone is expected to come into operation later this year with high-polluting cars having to pay £8 to travel into the city centre, the so-called CAZ will operate for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Cllr Waseem Zaffar, a cabinet member for transport and environment, said: “As a city, we have been over-reliant on private cars for too long and with more people choosing to live and work in Birmingham, we need to find innovative new ways to keep the city moving in an efficient but sustainable way.
“The more journeys we take by walking and cycling, the more we improve air quality and our health and the more we will reduce congestion.
“For longer journeys, buses, trams and trains will be the backbone of a new, go-anywhere transport system.
“Birmingham has already started to redress the balance and build a future in which the car will no longer be king.
“The introduction of Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone will reinforce our commitment to establish a zero-emissions city.
“The Birmingham Transport Plan, once adopted, will continue to build on these strong foundations, future-proofing our transport system and ensuring that we are able to move around our city in a faster, more efficient way with cleaner air and less congestion.”
The Daily Mail published a report this week underlining the other cities in the UK which are planning to have similar low emission zones. These include Aberdeen, Bath, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading, Sheffield, Slough and York.