Will YOU be driven off the road next week?

A draconian green clampdown is to ban older cars from the heart of our biggest city from Thursday... and 1million vehicles will risk a £60 fine for daring to enter the exclusion zone

IT was once the most car-friendly of places, so in thrall to the combustion engine that the city fathers ploughed a motorway through its heart. But now Glasgow is spearheading the war on motorists as Scotland’s biggest city gears up to switch on the country’s first Low Emission Zone (LEZ) this week.

From Thursday, only vehicles that meet the toughest engine emission standards will be permitted to drive within the LEZ, while older gas-guzzling petrol and diesel models face stiff penalties if they are caught by a ring of fineissuing spy cameras.

Glasgow’s desire to be the first Scottish city to enforce an LEZ – Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh don’t follow suit until next summer – has sparked controversy.

Council chiefs claim the move is driven by improving air quality but road users and business chiefs have hit out at the impact it will have on individual travel and the city economy, with taxi drivers in particular voicing fears they will be forced off the roads.

Figures obtained under freedom of information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency suggest around one million vehicles in Scotland, roughly a third of the total, will not comply with the LEZ clampdown.

That could force drivers to either buy a new car or risk hefty fines, despite the SNP-Green Government’s own data showing pollution levels are already rated as ‘low’ across all the areas involved. Undaunted, officials are determined to press ahead, insisting the scheme’s implementation is central to meeting Holyrood’s ambitious targets of cutting emissions by 75 per cent and reducing the amount of car travel in Scotland by 20 per cent by 2030.

So what can motorists expect when they drive into Glasgow on Thursday? How will they know if their vehicle is legal and what can they do about it if it isn’t?

Here, the Scottish Daily Mail answers these and many other questions as we present the definitive guide to navigating the LEZ:

WHEN WILL ENFORCEMENT OF GLASGOW’S LEZ START?

The big switch-on takes place just after midnight on Thursday, June 1.

It will be ‘live’ 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round (including all public holidays such as Christmas Day and Boxing Day), so don’t imagine you can just sneak in after dark.

The scheme will be policed by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras stationed at 23 entry points around the edge of the LEZ, although it is understood only ten will switched on at any one time for ‘cost efficiency’ reasons. There again, only inveterate gamblers might want to take on those odds.

HOW FAR DOES GLASGOW’S LEZ REACH?

It effectively covers the city’s main shopping and business district, bounded to the west and north by that great rumbling transport corridor the M8 (which is not included in the zone), the Broomielaw along the River Clyde to the south, and High Street and Saltmarket to the east. The zone is key to Glasgow’s night-time economy, still reeling from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, and many businesses fear the new limits could put the brakes on their recovery.

CAN MY VEHICLE LEGALLY ENTER THE LEZ?

Yes, if it has the latest Euro 4/IV petrol engine, fitted since 2006, or Euro 6/VI diesel engine, fitted since September 2015. If you’re in any doubt, there is a handy tool https://www.lowemissionzones.scot/vehicle-registrationchecker which allows you to check before you set off.

Glasgow City Council figures show some 125,000 vehicles a day enter the LEZ and up to 90 per cent are currently compliant, but that still leaves around 12,500 daily commuters on the wrong side of the new restrictions, although the council expects that number to fall once enforcement begins and non-compliant vehicles give the area a wide berth.

Ironically, the local authority’s determination to press ahead with LEZ enforcement rather than delaying means around half of its own fleet of 1,615 vehicles are still thought to be non-compliant and will no longer be allowed to enter the city centre.

Coaches, commercial vehicles and HGVs older than 2013 may also be in trouble, which has caused particular headaches for small businesses which have little spare cash to replace ageing delivery vans.

ARE THERE ANY EXEMPTIONS?

Quite a few actually. The roughly 20,000 residents who live inside the LEZ will have a further year’s grace period – until May 31, 2024 – to comply. Emergency services vehicles, armed forces vehicles and blue badge holders will remain permanently exempted and, since LEZs are all about cutting fossil fuel use, those lucky enough to afford an electric car will be laughing, although hybrids will still be required to meet minimum emissions standards. Motorcycles and mopeds will be able to come and go freely, as will, somewhat counter-intuitively, petrolheads who drive ‘historical interest’ vehicles that are more than 30 years old. This parade of special cases is rounded off by the evocatively named ‘showman’s vehicles’, which means any vehicle used as part of a funfair can clatter through the city streets whenever and wherever it pleases.

WHAT IF MY SMOKEBELCHING OLD CLUNKER ISN’T LEZ LEGAL BUT I CARRY ON REGARDLESS?

Well, you better have deep pockets as you’re likely to rack up fines quicker than the scores on a pinball machine.

Any non-compliant vehicles caught on camera will receive a £60 penalty notice, halved to £30 if paid within 14 days. The fine doubles on each subsequent occasion the vehicle is driven into the LEZ within a 90-day period, up to a maximum of £480 for cars and vans and £960 for buses and lorries.

After shelling out for a few months at that rate, it’ll probably be cheaper to buy a new car. Or cadge a lift from a friend who already has.

SO WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY NON-COMPLIANT CAR?

That’s largely up to you, I’m afraid. Some £3.85million of government funding was made available in the 2021-22 financial year through the Low Emission Zone Support Fund in grants for businesses, organisations and individuals to help them adjust to dealing with LEZs in their cities.

A £900,000 Mobility and Scrappage fund gave grants of up to £3,000 to low-income families living within 20km of a LEZ, who were likely to be most affected by the loss of a car. It included £2,000 towards the safe disposal of their vehicle, plus Travel Better grants of up to £500 each for two members of the household to put towards the purchase of a bike, an e-bike, shared transport credits or public transport passes.

Similar deals were available to microbusinesses with fewer than nine employees, but the fund is currently closed to new applicants.

The rest of us will need to safely dispose of our vehicle, either selling it or scrapping it, then finding the cash to stump up for a newer, LEZ compliant one.

BUT DIDN’T TAXIS AND BUSES GET LOADS OF HELP TO PREPARE?

It’s true taxi drivers were quite vocal about the imposition of LEZs as many traditional ‘black cabs’ are too old to make the grade. They have been offered grants of up to 80 per cent of the cost of ‘retrofitting’ their engines, upgrading them to meet air quality standards, but many say the process will still leave them thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Taxis have been given a further year’s exemption from LEZ penalty charges if they signed up for funding to retrofit their engines. By April, more than 250 drivers had requested exemptions. But others are considering handing back their plates, fed up with the red tape and rising costs of keeping their cabs on the road.

Buses have actually had to comply with LEZ rules for a year now, but since LEZs were first announced in 2018, bus companies have shared grants totalling £21million to retrofit more than 1,200 buses and coaches to meet Euro VI air quality standards.

First Glasgow has also invested heavily in a new fleet of electric buses

and now has 200 operating daily across the city.

Yet, their night services still struggle to attract passengers, with some routes running at 30 per cent capacity as many people prefer the door-to-door convenience of cars and taxis.

SURELY CLEANING UP BUSES HAS HAD SOME IMPACT ALREADY?

Air pollution is a serious issue, contributing to the deaths of around 300 people a year in Glasgow and 2,000 across Scotland, with the young, the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions most in danger.

Many of Glasgow’s worst pollution hotspots were major bus corridors, such as Hope Street, branded the dirtiest street in Scotland. Since the buses were cleaned up, the SNP Government’s own data shows that pollution levels are now rated as ‘low’ across all the areas involved, prompting many to question the need for further restrictions.

Angus Millar, Glasgow City Council’s convener for climate and transport, has insisted pollution levels still aren’t good enough, adding: ‘We know this is going to work. It’s worked elsewhere.’

The local authority has pledged to ring-fence all the money it obtains from the LEZ fines for ‘activities that help reduce air pollution and/or contribute towards achieving our climate change targets’.

HOW HAS IT WORKED ELSEWHERE?

There are around 500 cities across Europe which have some form of LEZ in place, including Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid and Milan.

In the UK, Birmingham, Bristol, Bradford, Sheffield and Newcastle all have clean air zones.

London, notoriously bad for pollution, has had an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in place since 2019, which is controversially due to be extended in August.

One key difference is that in Glasgow, non-compliant vehicles are simply banned but in London and in other cities they can enter the LEZ but need to pay a charge. In central London, drivers also have to pay a daily congestion charge of £12.50.

A recent report showed London’s ULEZ has reduced pollution, with harmful nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels 46 per cent lower in central London and 21 per cent lower in inner London than they would have been without the scheme.

London mayor Sadiq Khan said: ‘The evidence is clear, the ULEZ works. This is beyond dispute.’

AND WHAT ABOUT SCOTLAND’S OTHER LEZS?

Glasgow is the first of Scotland’s ‘big four’ cities to begin enforcement. With each local authority allowed to set the scope and timescale of its LEZ, Dundee will be next, switching on its cameras on May 30, 2024, followed two days later, on June 1, 2024, by Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Dundee’s LEZ sits within the A991 inner ring road but excludes the Bell Street, West Marketgait and Wellgate car parks. Aberdeen’s LEZ extends from Holburn Street to Virginia Street, south to Willowbank Road and north to Huntly Street. Edinburgh’s zone includes the West End, Queen Street and the New Town, Greenside, Abbeyhill, the Pleasance, the Meadows, and Tollcross.

By the time they go live, Glasgow might know if its war on motorists was worth it. If so, perhaps everyone can breathe a little easier.