Senior officials from the Joint Air Quality Unit met with the BVRLA today to discuss Clean Air Zones and their progress with development of the centralised payment portal.
JAQU confirmed that the earliest date for the introduction of Birmingham & Leeds Clean Air Zones will be January 2021, with Bath following soon after.
They confirmed their intention to roll out a national CAZ-awareness communications campaign six months ahead of the first CAZ being rolling out, but noted that for now, Covid-related communications remain a priority for Government.
JAQU has been working with DVLA, Transport for London and manufacturers to address some of the issues with inaccuracies on the vehicle checker system and they are keen to work with BVRLA members to test the payment portal.
They made it clear that autopay funtionality - the ability to register a fleet and be automatically billed for trips within a zone - will not be feasible due to difficulties with reconciling payments to individual local authorities at the back end. The ability to pay 7 days in arrears may also not be possible.
This will have a major impact on fleets who need to tailor their own processes to be able to pay in the absence of autopay. Member testing will therefore be critical to identifying further concerns and to try and influence required changes.
Members wanting to be involved with testing the CAZ payment portal should contact BVRLA Senior Policy Advisor, Catherine Bowen via [email protected]
