Greater Manchester prepares updated clean air plan which includes £30 million support for taxi drivers

Greater Manchester is set to submit an updated Clean Air Plan to the Government following encouraging improvements in air quality across the region. The preferred approach continues to avoid charging any vehicles using the city’s roads, while promoting investment in cleaner buses and supporting taxi drivers in upgrading their vehicles.

New projections show the plan will achieve the legal air quality targets by 2026, slightly delayed from the 2025 target set in the 2023 submission. An alternative plan proposing a charging Clean Air Zone for Manchester and Salford has been ruled out, as it would fail to meet the deadline.

A key component of the updated plan focuses on cleaner buses. Recent figures show the introduction of greener vehicles is already making a difference, with air pollution levels in 2023 lower than those recorded in 2022 and significantly down on pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Nitrogen dioxide levels, once high at 129 locations, now exceed limits in just 64 sites.

The introduction of Zero Emission Buses (ZEBs) under the Bee Network and the transition to franchised bus services have driven much of the improvement. The proportion of electric buses in franchised areas has grown from under 1% to more than 10%, with a target for a third of the fleet to be electric by 2027 and an all-electric fleet by 2030.

Alongside bus electrification, the revised plan also provides for £30.5m to help hackney carriage and private hire drivers switch to cleaner vehicles, as well as £5m for traffic management measures aimed at reducing emissions on Regent Road and Quay Street.

The updated Clean Air Plan was published on 18 September 2024 and will be submitted for government approval following the Greater Manchester Air Quality Administration Committee’s meeting on 1 October. The final decision on the plan rests with the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit.

Leader of Bury Council and Clean Air lead for Greater Manchester, Cllr Eamonn O’Brien, said: “Poor air quality affects us all and particularly the most vulnerable among us – the young, old and those with health conditions. We have a longstanding commitment to cleaning up our air and Greater Manchester has carried out a tremendous amount of work to get us to a place where we are seeing air quality improvements.

“The latest air quality monitoring data shows a really encouraging trend and indicates that the steps we’ve already taken to invest in cleaner buses through the Bee Network are making real inroads to cleaning up the air we all breathe. And we’ve done this without the hardship to residents and businesses that a charging Clean Air Zone could cause.

“Given some of the changes that have occurred in the last nine months, there was a need to adapt and update our proposals for an investment-led, non-charging GM Clean Air Plan. We’re now in a position where that work has been done and, subject to approvals, we can submit our updated plan to the new government as soon as possible and await their decision.”