Will Sheffield's clean air zone be postponed?

It follows letters sent to government from Birmingham, Leeds and Oxford councils asking to postpone their plans to reduce city centre pollution.

In response to the letters, a spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "We are sympathetic to the challenges local authorities are facing and we are working with them to mitigate the impact this may have on other priorities."

Sheffield currently has illegal levels of air pollution which are estimated to contribute to around 500 deaths a year.

To tackle this, the council plans to introduce daily charges for all high polluting taxis, buses, vans, lorries and coaches to drive the inner ring road and city centre, including Park Square and the A61/Parkway junction.

For taxis and large goods vehicles the charge will be £10 a day. For coaches, buses and heavy goods vehicles it will be £50 a day.

It hopes the scheme will encourage drivers to upgrade to more environmentally-friendly vehicles to avoid the charges.

The clean air zone plans were due to be implemented by early 2021 and a bid to the government for funding is supposed to be submitted this year.

But due to the coronavirus outbreak many things have been put on hold. Sheffield Council said it had not written to government asking for plans to be postponed but said it will need to take the implications of coronavirus into account.

Sheffield Council said: "Reducing the harm from the COVID-19 pandemic is our first priority - continuing to deliver the critical council services, coordinate public health and support the NHS is vital in these unprecedented times.

"Birmingham's Clean Air Zone is part of an earlier phase than ours and we have not set a date when the Clean Air Zone will go live.

"In continuing to develop our proposals to submit to Government for approval, we will give full consideration to the implications of COVID-19."