Clean Air Zone: Sheffield City Council planning to decommission system which raised £7m in first year

Sheffield City Council is already making plans to decommission its controversial Clean Air Zone.

Councillor Ben Miskell revealed the authority was setting money aside to dismantle the system of cameras, which raked in more than £7m in its first year.

He was responding to questions about how it would spend its new income stream. The authority has already announced £1m to improve air quality around schools. But Coun Miskell said some of the rest of the cash was spoken for, including running costs, fees to government and decommissioning.

Coun Miskell said: "We have to make sure before we commit to any further spending that we pay for the decommissioning costs for, in the future, if we don’t have to have the clean air zone if our air quality improves substantially.

"There’s also various running costs so we can continue to fund it, we also have to pay fees to the government to process payments. We are being very prudent, as people would expect, in making sure we only make announcements about what we can afford."

Air quality data is due in summer which will show the CAZ is working, he added.

The clean air zone charges older diesel vans and taxis £10-a-day to travel on, or within, the inner ring road. Older coaches, buses and lorries are charged £50-a-day. It was introduced in February 2023.