Political awareness was recently jolted into a state of being ‘wide awake’ as the Metro Mayor Andy Burnham announced the roll out of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone. (CAZ)
With signage going up all over the Metropolitan area, growing anger and frustration resulted in the formation of a Facebook Group called (RETHINK the Clean Air Zone – Greater Manchester). It soon attracted many thousands of new members to the group and became a focal point for resistance against the LABOUR Mayors scheme.
But how had such a scheme come about in the first place?
Well the issue started back when we were members of the EU and our national government was taken to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to comply with the Clean Air directive issued by that Federalist entity. The government being found ‘guilty’ and ‘ordered’ to apply the directive and clean up its act and the air where necessary, throughout the UK.
Upon leaving the EU (Eventually after years of torture on our TV screens) you would have thought that our national government might undertake what they originally promised. That being, a bonfire of EU legislation and requirements that had for so long, impeded our nation’s ability to govern itself, as one would expect, in a one person one vote democracy.
But no the EU laws were simply rolled over as case law and statute, for ease they said at the time, but there was never anything easy with the EU, was there?
So the issue of Clean Air Zones (CAZ) was kicked lazily into the long grass, until an activists’ group called “Client Earth” took it upon themselves to take the now independent UK government, to the High Court here in the UK. With only the case law of the ECJ to fall back on, it was an open and closed case with the government being directed to implement the ruling of the ECJ.
Now who pays for these activists to make our lives hell as they super-glue themselves to the road and bring traffic to a halt as was seen in the recent Insulate Britain debacle. Well thing is YOU do, well at least any of you that are playing the ‘peoples lottery/postcode lottery’ as Client Earth gets its funds to take people and governments to court on environmental issues directly from those of you that pay the £10 per month to have your postcode in the draw. So the uproar and opposition to CAZ was brought about by government kicking the original problem into the grass and failing to have that bonfire they promised and everyday voters paying for activism in their name via the postcode lottery.
Anyway having now been told to do it the government issued guidance and directive to council boroughs to undertake monitoring and clean up of the air we breathe, where it was found to be in excess of legal limits. That guidance is freely available for anyone to read and if you do, you will realise that government never stipulated that a charging zone was formed. It Just asked, for a plan to address the issue of clean air and adequate monitoring of that air, to ensure compliance with the legal limits.
Now here is where the ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham took it upon himself to suggest to the individual boroughs that they all throw their hats into the same ring and let him create the scheme for everyone. Some boroughs were not even required to have a scheme, Rochdale being one of them, but also being LABOUR controlled it just agreed and so all ten boroughs were going to be part of the Andy Burnham master-plan.
Now he could have gone for monitoring and limited exclusions or controls, but instead developed the biggest charging area in the world at over 430 Square miles. His idea, his plan and a real money spinning opportunity from those that just love to spend YOUR money.
He consulted he said, but we recall a consultation that was far fairer in 2008 and it was a referendum on charging. You might recall the threat that there would be no Metro-link to Ashton unless we agreed to the charge. But 80% said NO!
Metro link of no metro link they saw it for what it was and what this rebranded CAZ is also. . . A LABOUR money spinning opportunity, of gigantic proportions, on an electorate battered by two years of COVID and neck deep in poverty and deprivation.
All this, from a political party, that is supposed to represent the working class. PAH!
Busted and now realising the strength of opposition to his scheme, the Teflon coated Mayor alias ‘King of the North’ moved his damage limitation efforts into overdrive.
“It was not his decision to charge”
It was!
“He was told by government to do it”
Individual boroughs were told to form clean air schemes and the Metro Mayor decided it was best to do such schemes on a Metro area basis. Convincing the borough leaders, who are also Labour, to let him take the strain.
Government did not instruct him to make it a charging zone scheme as that was optional!
“It had to be this big”
No it didn’t, it could have been smaller or a series of smaller areas, focused on where it was required!
He even went as far as to produce a letter from a Minister to prove his case, he claimed, but all it actually proved was that he was gas-lighting the public and showboating, just as he did on the steps of City Hall when he claimed he found out news of a financial settlement via social media. The TRUTH and our Metro Mayor are merely passing acquaintances in the night and this CAZ scheme is nothing more than a blatant attempt to raise more TAX for Labour to then squander and waste as usual!
Link to Defra guidance on clean air zones
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-quality-clean-air-zone-framework-for-england
Link to Client Earth Legal Activists’
Link to Rethink GM Clean Air zone
Anyone voting Labour after this needs their bumps feeling. There was no need for it the size it is and I heard that Burnham wanted a charge zone to pay for his buses. Just more Tax from Labour as usual
When the Labour candidate came to my door and I asked about CAZ he actually used the words “CAZ tax” and seemed clueless. I told him that despite being a lifelong Labour supporter I would NOT be voting for them in the May elections. I am waiting to see who the candidates are, but will probably vote Tory as they’re the only ones opposed to the charging scheme. I don’t drive but it’s clear this scheme will destroy Manchester businesses and gave a knock-on disastrous effect on everyone, if it is brought into force.
Whilst it may be the case that the Conservatives are the only ones offering a glimmer of hope at the moment, they are also committed to having a CAZ scheme to ensure that NO2 levels are within the legal limits. This is because it is a ‘legal’ requirement, that originally emanated from the (ECJ) European Courts of Justice some years ago. Upon leaving the EU instead of having a bonfire of legislation they rolled the lot over, very stupidly and it became UK ‘case law’.
That ‘case law’ was cited by an organisation called ‘Client Earth’ which are environmentalists who receive most of their funding from the postcode lottery. So if you play the postcode lottery YOUR money was used to take the government to court. they obviously won, as it was an open and shut case of non-compliance to an EU directive that still sat on the books as ‘case law’.
So government provided guidance for compliance and issued it to individual borough councils, which in turn gave it to the Metro Mayor in Greater Manchester to draft. Two Boroughs who were NOT required to have such a scheme (Wigan and Rochdale) also threw their hats into the ring with their Labour leader at the regional level.
If Burnham’s scheme, which is on hold, for the moment, is thrown out by the Conservatives, they are still obliged to have such a scheme, as would any local council initially cited for compliance. They say theirs would be a lot smaller, they say theirs would only monitor in localised areas. But we all know what they say and what they ultimately do are worlds apart.
Northern Heart takes the view that for legal limits to be maintained, it falls upon councils to provide sufficient charging facilities to allow people to migrate to EVs and a supportive vehicle transfer scheme along with cheap charging, in order to incentives migration to EVs. We believe the zone should be as tiny as is humanly possible because there will have to be monitoring of some sort to comply with the court’s direction.
Even if the government now have that bonfire of legislation they originally promised, CAZ would not go away as it is now ‘case law’ in the UK’s own High Court. The very best we can hope for is for a non-charging zone with monitored compliance, at the same time as incentivising the migration to EVs by offering financial incentives and infrastructure support, in the form of a massive rollout of charging infrastructure.
When all said and done this is yet another TAX in advance of the lost revenue they anticipate from reduced petrol vehicles being on the roads. What they also have failed to consider is the impact of so many new EVs on the road, given that if we replaced every vehicle in the world in the morning, the amount of Lithium required would consume every last drop of water on the planet to extract. The way forward will ultimately be hydrogen fuel cell type vehicles, but they just have not got round to realising the impact of Lithium extraction at the moment.
https://www.mining-technology.com/features/lithiums-water-problem/
The truth is out there but you will only find it easy to locate at Northern Heart and we stand full square against any form of CAZ charging and are in fact the only party prepared to follow the incentivised route rather than the TAX route!