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Leicester City Council has scrapped plans for a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) that would have seen non-Euro-6 trucks and buses charged £50 a day to enter the area.

The council said this week that the Air Quality Action Plan it produced in 2015 has led to such “huge” improvements in the city’s pollution levels that there is no need for the planned CAZ.

Leicester was one of 58 councils directed by the government in 2018 to take measures to quickly cut nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which resulted in the city producing a plan for a charging CAZ.

A city council spokesperson said: ‘In 2018, along with several other local authorities, we were directed by the government to develop a plan that would make Leicester compliant with EU nitrogen dioxide levels in the shortest possible time.

‘At the time, the government favoured a clean air zone as the most effective way of doing this.

‘However, since the implementation of our Air Quality Action Plan in Leicester in 2015, there have been huge improvements in our air quality. Because of the improvements we have made, government is now unlikely to fund the development of a clean air zone.

‘Air quality improvements are measured in numerous ways, including through an extensive network of over 50 monitors spread throughout the city.

‘We are currently meeting with government to finalise our plans to further improve air quality in Leicester, which we will be submitting to them in the next few weeks.'

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