Sheffield taxi drivers say Clean Air Zone ‘snookered’ them as they wait months for support

Drivers have again been protesting the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) which charges the most polluting vehicles to drive in the city centre and ring road.

They said various problems including long delays to support had “snookered” them.

With just days to go until an exemption for LGVs and Hackney carriages is lifted, cabbies took their fight to the Town Hall asking council leaders to extend the deadline and act on delays in a strategy and resources committee meeting this week.

Ibrar Hussain, a former councillor, spoke on behalf of taxi drivers during the meeting alongside others.

He said some waited many months just to get a reply from the council about their application for financial support and then waited “forever” to get the funding after approval.

“The resources provided to the CAZ team are poor, it’s not managed as it should be,” he said.

“The 90 day exemption period is not viable. It needs to be extended to give people the opportunity to buy a vehicle and get it licensed.

“Drivers are snookered.”

He urged leaders: “Look into this with the utmost priority and pay the drivers as soon as possible. It is absolutely unacceptable.”

Recently elected council leader Tom Hunt said their calls did not “fall on deaf ears” but the council was restricted in what it could do.

He said: “Clean air is a fundamental right. One in 20 deaths are in some form attributed to air pollution. Let us all be clear that is not okay. We need a society wide response to this but this has to be done fairly.

“It is important to remember that the clean air zones were mandated by this government and the timing of this is far from ideal, not least because of the serious cost of living crisis which is affecting us all and I know is affecting you [the drivers] very much.

“The support doesn’t go as far as we would like and you would like and we will continue to bang the drum for Sheffield drivers.”

He confirmed the council was unable to extend the exemption, saying the government would not allow it.