Bath’s Clean Air Zone is expected to make a loss of £800,000 next year – but the council says this was always the plan.
Introduced in 2021 to tackle air pollution, the CAZ requires drivers of a host of types of vehicle to pay a charge to drive through a central part of the city, although private cars are exempt.
Drivers who fail to pay the charge face a hefty fine. By the end of 2023, the CAZ had netted the council £7 million from fines alone.
But now it is expected to make a loss, with the cost of the zone set to be higher than the money the council expects to make from drivers.
Speaking at a Bath & North East Somerset Council scrutiny panel on 22nd January, Councillor Saskia Heijltjes (Green, Lambridge) said: “I understand that the Clean Air Zone is forecast to run a deficit of £800k in 2026/27 from earlier papers.”
But the loss did not appear on the council’s projected costs for the next year.
Asked why by Councillor Heijltjes, council officers said this had always been the plan and the loss had already been balanced from earlier profit from the CAZ which had been specifically set aside for this purpose.
Council cabinet member for resources Mark Elliott said: “The expectation was that it would become successful and therefore less profitable.
“The aim was never to make a huge profit, it was to stop polluting vehicles coming into the middle of the city.”
Council officers said this had worked and the numbers of vehicles contravening the CAZ were reducing.
They said that the money put aside would continue to keep the scheme going for “the end years,” until the CAZ was either decommissioned or replaced with a new scheme.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
