Updated Clean Air Plan does not meet the scale of the challenge
● Over two years since Clean Air Zone plans were first announced, the latest proposals are a missed opportunity to really tackle Greater Manchester’s toxic air problem.
● Greater Manchester has dirtiest air in the country according to government.
● Local campaigners welcome details of investment in zero emission buses and taxis, but say this is too little, too late.
Responding to the latest proposals from GMCA on the region’s Clean Air Plan, local campaigners say they are disappointed by the level of ambition laid out in the plans.
This morning, Andy Burnham and Eamonn O’Brien, the GM lead for Clean Air, set out the latest proposals for a Clean Air Plan which will be voted on by the Air Quality Administration Committee next week. They claim that additional modelling done at the request of central government shows that legal limits for pollutants can be met with an investment-led plan, without the need for a charging zone.
Sarah Rowe, the GM representative of the Clean Cities Campaign points out that the new plan only tackles a small part of the problem. “Although we welcome the plan to invest in cleaner taxis and buses, the number of vehicles that will be upgraded is a tiny percentage of the vehicles on our roads. Dirty diesel vehicles are a huge part of the problem and the latest plan does nothing to support people to transition out of polluting vans or cars. The fact that thousands of children in GM have their lungs stunted and thousands of others suffer poor health because of toxic air is getting lost in the politics of local versus national government. I hope the proposals announced today will be acted on quickly so we can move towards more ambitious action to clean up our air.”
Cazz Ward of Let’s Talk Clean Air Whalley Range said 'We have yet to see the proposed GM modelling but we know the number of polluting diesel vehicles owned by households in Manchester has stayed the same since the beginning of 2021, whereas in cities with a charging CAZ, numbers are decreasing. This plan does nothing to address this situation, especially pollution levels in our local neighbourhoods.
Manchester dominates the list of most polluted primary and secondary schools in some of England’s worst pollution hotspots outside of schools. Our own measurements in Whalley Range show pollution levels three times over the WHO recommended levels outside all of our schools.“
Ben Horrigan from Walk Ride GM added “We are very disappointed by this decision, which we believe is a significant setback – not just for clean air, but also for active travel and our climate. In order to comply with our 2026 clean air targets, it is crucial that short car journeys are disincentivised – an inconvenient truth that no politician in Greater Manchester seems willing to accept. Schemes like workplace parking levies have worked in Nottingham, for example, helping to fund their sustainable transport network and reducing local air pollution levels.
When will we do the same here?
The problem will not go away by managing traffic flows at the expense of pedestrians who need smoother journeys and shorter wait times to cross our roads. In the long term, “improving” traffic flow only increases the number of journeys made by car until congestion returns worse than ever. Even electric vehicles are not a good enough solution, given the growing concerns about air pollution caused by tyre wear. We urgently ask GMCA to advise how they will disincentivise short car journeys in order to put the brakes on air pollution in our city region.”
Liz Godfrey from Mums for Lungs commented “Every day children across the whole of Greater Manchester are breathing in dirty air which is causing long term damage to their lungs. Today’s plan is not going far enough or quick enough to tackle the urgent issue of air pollution in this city. We need to prioritise children’s health and protect them from this toxic air.”
