Has anyone succesfully argued a Clean Air Zone charge away?

WellKnownSid

Gerrard00004 said:

So for example, my car is a 2006 diesel so not CAZ compliant

Have you considered swapping your 2006 diesel for a 2006 petrol?  My daughter did something similar (2009 diesel for a 2010 petrol) and the cost to change wasn't that much.

Nasqueron

Gerrard00004 said:

Unfortunately, CAZ charges are like free introductory subscriptions where you know you need to cancel before you get charged but forget to do so.

Iv got about 7 pending against me, even though I have paid for over a 100 other times. I am refusing to pay them, I called up after being a day late to see if I could pay and there was no movement or grace. Appeals are always rejected and they pass them onto to debt collectors straight away, who try to scare you into paying, send unregistered bailiffs to your property and then when you question them escalate the situation, like a follow up text to state that my vehicles registration has been put on a high priority ANPR recovery, this minutes after trying to be diplomatic and advising I was going to talk to the council.

Apologies but I am going to offer you no advice here but purely rant about the CAZ scheme - sorry.

CAZ, especially in Birmingham is a complete money making scheme, it punishes the poor. So for example, my car is a 2006 diesel so not CAZ compliant. I enter into the city and have to pay £8 plus parking, I could drive a gas guzzling Defender and only pay for parking. To qualify for the scrappage scheme in which I may be eligible for a £2k grant, was that I earned less than £30k a year, worked more than 18 weeks in the CAZ and that I had been the registered keeper since 2018. Even if my position was accepted, I would have to choose a vehicle via their selected party (Motorpoint). I done a search and one of the cheapest cars, on the minimal miles involved a deposit of over £1k and a monthly finance fee of £250+ and guess what, I wouldn't even own the vehicle and would have to renew at the end of my contract.
So, how is it, that at a time where people are really struggling financially, and cannot afford to pay either way, are we not charging rich people, driving massive cars, commonly parking in a care free manner anything? it is so backwards. Infact the most backwards part of the whole scheme is the HS2. How many wagons or plant do they have working in the area, kicking up dust, running generators, etc. These wagons pay a one off fee for the day, which will be offset as costs in the contractors budgeting, so the Council are basically paying for them to be allowed to drive into the CAZ they created. Its bonkers.

 

You don't have to drive into the city, you can park outside the ring road and get a bus/train/tram/cycle/walk in, the CAZ isn't that big. You view it as a money making scheme, others view it as a way of dealing with the dirty pollution your old banger is producing - which also punishes the poor who have to live there, breathing in the particle matter and getting cancer/lung diseases

WellKnownSid

It’s not PM but nitrogen dioxide - that’s what is killing people and yes the poorer families that can’t even afford a car or young/elderly that can’t even drive are statistically the worst affected.

393673

I feel for you Gerrard. I regularly fall foul of a PCN because I have a brain injury that means (in brief ) I can’t take advantage of the time limits available to pay the daily charge and am currently preparing a claim to the county court for discrimination on mental impairment grounds.

Well done though to those Zones and ‘toll-like’ services (e.g. TfL, Dartford Tunnel) who provide an autopay system that enables me to automatically pay only the daily charge when I fail to remember having entered the zone (unintentionally in Birmingham, buses are good). This means I would only pay £8, but have to pay £60 every time for my ‘negligence’.

However I am wondering if I also have the energy and mental capacity to seek crowd funding for a ‘class action’ as Birmingham’s PCN charges do look more like a stealth tax when autopay exists elsewhere? Anyone interested, any lawyers especially?

I truly want to be supportive of efforts to improve air quality but like Gerrard it’s too costly for me to convert or change my vehicle at present. I try my best to avoid the zone and use the congested ring road instead, but sometimes I mistakenly enter, often in an attempt to avoid blockages. Wayze is helpful but not perfect where roadworks stear me onto unfamiliar roads and the plethora of road signage can be more confusing than helpful.

Okell

@393673 - you've resurrected a thread that died about 18 months ago.

If you want current advice about fighting a CAZ penalty I'd advise you to go to Civil penalty charge notices (Councils, TFL and so on) rather than posting here.

They specialise in council/local authority tickets rather than private parking

(Make sure you read the READ THIS FIRST sticky before posting 😁 )

Mildly_Miffed

A brain injury that means you are unable to pay the fee for six days after driving in what's actually a very small area (less than 3 square miles), bounded on all sides by the non-charged ring road… but which doesn't leave you medically unfit to drive?

I'm not doubting you or asking for details, but that sounds like a very narrow window of mental acuity.

Too costly to change the vehicle to a post-2004 petrol or post-2015 diesel at present - or, indeed, at any time in the nearly five years since the Brum CAZ was introduced…?

Without wanting to sound cynical, taken together, this could be perceived as sounding a lot like "I don't like it for political reasons, and I'm going to be bloody minded about it."

Ectophile

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80844973#Comment_80844973

Clean air zones are nothing do do with how big the car is or what its CO2 emissions are. CO2 is pretty much harmless to humans, even if it causes problems globally.

It's all about NOx emissions. These are poisonous to humans and can cause or worsen breathing difficulties. I don't know much about the CAZ, but the London ULEZ assumes Euro 4 emissions for petrol cars and Euro 6 for diesel are acceptable.

Why is that? Because Euro 5 and earlier diesels emit too much NOx. That was cleaned up in Euro 6 with the addition of AdBlue to the system.

So it's nothing to do with punishing poor people, and more about making sure that the poor people who have to walk the pavements are allowed to breathe clean air.

I have a Euro 5 diesel car. I don't drive it in London. So the London ULEZ is doing its job.

jimjames

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81872173#Comment_81872173

I'm constantly surprised about the comments saying that poor people are unable to get cars that meet ULEZ. Most petrol cars from 2004 are compliant (and some earlier too) so you can buy one for very little if you need to use it in London. Sold one recently for £900 that was bought by someone to use in the ULEZ zone so it's not expensive unless you want to try justifying your reason for a brand new car.