Council fines dozens of its own staff for breaking Low Emission Zone rules in council vehicles

4 October 2023, 07:41 | Updated: 4 October 2023, 07:56

By Alan Zycinski

@AlanJZycinski

Glasgow City Council has fined dozens of its own staff for breaking Low Emission Zone rules in council-owned vehicles.

Enforcement began in June meaning drivers in the city centre are now penalised if their cars or vans don't meet clean air standards.

Council officials have spent almost £100,000 since then hiring vehicles to replace parts of its fleet that don't meet those standards while it awaits permanent replacements.

But LBC has found that non-compliant council vehicles are still being caught in the zone.

Our Freedom of Information request showed that 27 have been snared since June 1st.

And 15 of those came months into the scheme after July 27th.

Penalty charges were issued in each of the 27 offences and we've learned the council workers behind the wheel had to pay them.

A council spokeswoman said: “Glasgow’s Low Emission Zone is an essential measure to protect public health by reducing stubbornly high levels of harmful air pollution in our city centre.

“Its requirements apply equally to council vehicles as they do all other vehicles driving into the zone.

“Since the introduction of Glasgow’s LEZ several months ago, a small number of non-compliant council vehicles have been subject to penalty charge notices.

“Measures to mitigate against such occurrences are in place and drivers have been reminded of the scheme’s requirements as necessary.”They've previously said only a "limited part of its fleet would be required to enter the city-centre LEZ".

This suggests drivers mistakenly drove into the zone when they weren't required to.

Or mistakenly presumed all of the council's vehicles would meet their own city centre emission standards.

The Scottish Conservative's Shadow Transport Minister Graham Simpson MSP said: "The fact that Glasgow council’s own vehicles still don’t comply with their LEZ rules tells you all you need to know about how badly they’ve mishandled the introduction of this scheme".