Bath Clean air zone

[KUSKUS]

Just to bring everyone up to date , I drove through Bath on my way to Longleat Caravan Club site , blindly following my ancient Garmin Sat Nav and spotted the clean air zone ( CAZ) but found it impossible to turn around in a safe manor.
I Have received a Penalty Charge Notice and appealed on the grounds that I wasn't aware of the scheme and the lack of signage to alert of the zone.
Just received a letter from Bath council rejecting my appeal but they have waived the penalty charge element.
So just as a reminder to all Funsters that if you drive through Bath and you own a older motorhome over 3500KG expect to pay £100 for the privilege.
If you wish to visit Bath you can apply for a discount which reduces the cost to £9 but you must apply at least 14 days before but cannot be applied retrospectively.

 

[Dorwyn]

Many more motohomers Will get caught by this. The zone virtually straddles the A36 north and south, there are limited choices of alternative roads and bridges, and Bath attracts innocent tourists ready for the shake down. A one time tourist is not the same as a bunch of heavy lorries, but is in the same class when it comes to fines. The authorities could make an exception and keep its tourists happy.

 

[LesW]

That's a nice little earner...

 

[Tinker2]

Been there got the fine, my appeal went the same way.
Is it Ok for the good people of Bath to visit our county of Cornwall each summer and pollute us?
Its a Rip off.

 

[SpeedyDux]

£100 just for driving an older big MH via Bath is sheer extortion. The Council perhaps reflects the area. Bath itself is a very odd place.

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[Mr Colpot]

I found myself in Bath due to a road closure. Luckily after a bit of a panic I found our van was ok so no charge.

 

[Arnside037]

Just looking at a map and if you are travelling North -South on the A46 from the north to pick up the A36 to continue south, you could go through Bathampton, crossing the A4 at the single lane bridge on Mill Lane to pick up the A36 and continue south. I bet the locals are really thrilled should a significant number of vehicles be opting for this route.
My sat nav has the option to avoid toll roads , but will other sat nav systems be able to plan a route which avoids CAZs? And if so, would it send vehicles through Bathampton?

 

[cliffanger]

Just looking at a map and if you are travelling North -South on the A46 from the north to pick up the A36 to continue south, you could go through Bathampton, crossing the A4 at the single lane bridge on Mill Lane to pick up the A36 and continue south. I bet the locals are really thrilled should a significant number of vehicles be opting for this route.
My sat nav has the option to avoid toll roads , but will other sat nav systems be able to plan a route which avoids CAZs? And if so, would it send vehicles through Bathampton?

And that’s exactly what happens! I can’t believe the owners of homes in a really desirable area around Bath will be putting up with it for long.

We live just outside of Bath and avoid it like the plague. We pay them our council tax, but they get nothing else from us!

The CAZ actually includes part of the designated HGV Route around Bath.

We have to pay £9 to get our van MOT’d as it’s in the said HGV area, and at the start of the CAZ debacle the council told the MOT garage that motorhomes were exempt - we checked and had to tell them different - they had no idea!

Absolute cash cow - nothing to do with clean air - if it was, high polluters would be banned on certain days - as happens in France and Germany.

 

[LesW]

How on earth did a local authority get away with turning a main road (that appears to by pass Bath) into a toll road?

 

[KUSKUS]

So I paid £100 to drive through Bath, how does that help the environment.
Surely it would be better to put large signage to advise not to drive my dirty motorhome into Bath ?

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[Sapper520]

Bath are at it again……upsetting Wiltshire residents. They’re on about extending the scheme to newer LGV over 12 ton.

It appears Wiltshire are already feeling the effect of what Bath are doing, and fear it’s going to get worse.

 

[Dorwyn]

It's ill conceived and badly managed. Their only answer is to make it more stringent. How was it ever allowed!

 

[dazandandrea]

It's ill conceived and badly managed. Their only answer is to make it more stringent. How was it ever allowed!

Probably because councils are having to prove how environmentally friendly they are and how they are reducing pollution.
" i know , lets charge the arse off everyone , thatll cure all the worlds problems"
Money making exercise , pure and simple.
Its gonna happen everywhere very soon.

 

[cyberyacht]

You can pollute as much as you like. It just comes at a price.

 

[St3v3]

For info, the toll bridge is a 4t limit.

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[SteveRallye]

If you do not know and signage is crap it is unfair, but they will argue ignorance is no defence. However if you want to be forarmed then just google all UK clean air zones and enter your reg and it will tell you if your vehicle conforms or not.

 

[MR. FUSION]

I am preparing myself for the dystopian, I mean utopian EV future......but after recent soundbites from govt ministers it appears I am incorrect, I should prepare for the utopian non vehicle ownership public transport only utopian future
I believe some people have already been relieved of the burden of their ICE vehicles in ULEZ areas....

 

[TheMachMan]

I must admit we spotted the signage when we visited Bath Marina traveling from Warminster direction. Luckily our van is exempt but seems ludicrous to charge for using the main bypass Route. This is also the one of the main routes to Bristol and there are many/any alternatives.

 

[Pablo19]

I run lorrys into Bath for my job and due to them being Euro 6 they are exempt for now. They have already announced however that the air quality hasn't improved so they will be proposing to charge even Euro 6 trucks soon.

 

[Riverbankannie]

I run lorrys into Bath for my job and due to them being Euro 6 they are exempt for now. They have already announced however that the air quality hasn't improved so they will be proposing to charge even Euro 6 trucks soon.

I wonder why the air quality has not improved ???
Oh yes, people still have to move about, go to work, get goods delivered/taken away, buses, refuse lorries etc. I don’t think that there are many tourists just going through for the sake of it. So the fines/taxes are paid and the air quality stays the same.

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[dazandandrea]

And people stop visiting.

 

[KUSKUS]

I certainly wont be rushing back to Bath to visit , sad really its a nice place.

 

[SpeedyDux]

I wonder why the air quality has not improved ???
Oh yes, people still have to move about, go to work, get goods delivered/taken away, buses, refuse lorries etc. I don’t think that there are many tourists just going through for the sake of it. So the fines/taxes are paid and the air quality stays the same.

That Council probably fantasizes about a return to a Jane Austen-style utopia that never actually existed. The air quality probably was much worse then, when houses had smog-creating fireplaces, and there was smelly horse dung and garbage on all roads.

 

[dazandandrea]

Its going to be the same everywhere soon unfortunately.

 

[Arnside037]

There are probably so many wood burners in those Georgian fireplaces that whatever they charge for vehicles it wont make a dent in the particulate levels. A report today in the press puts wood burners at a higher pollution level than diesels.

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[MR. FUSION]

There are probably so many wood burners in those Georgian fireplaces that whatever they charge for vehicles it wont make a dent in the particulate levels. A report today in the press puts wood burners at a higher pollution level than diesels.

Bosch have been re-working existing DPF technology, it could even be retro fitted to existing vehicles as I understand it.
Bosch’s experimental test vehicle’s nitrogen-oxide emissions averaged 13 mg per kilometer. That is approximately only one-tenth of the maximum limit that will apply in 2020.
https://www.bosch.com/stories/new-diesel-engine-technology/
But nobody in government wants that to upset their electric dreams......

 

[vzac]

I must admit we spotted the signage when we visited Bath Marina traveling from Warminster direction. Luckily our van is exempt but seems ludicrous to charge for using the main bypass Route. This is also the one of the main routes to Bristol and there are many/any alternatives.

Seems to me if you want to go to Bath go by boat, any old chugger will do, how about a steam trawler chugging out smoke like a factory. No problem there then. ( If you can get the coal to burn )

 

[vzac]

That Council probably fantasizes about a return to a Jane Austen-style utopia that never actually existed. The air quality probably was much worse then, when houses had smog-creating fireplaces, and there was smelly horse dung and garbage on all roads.

And t.b and cholora, plague, nits and vermin nesting in their wigs. Must have been wo derful in those days

 

[Guigsy]

I run lorrys into Bath for my job and due to them being Euro 6 they are exempt for now. They have already announced however that the air quality hasn't improved so they will be proposing to charge even Euro 6 trucks soon.

The scheme has been running for less than a year and the traffic conditions have been very non-typical the past couple of years due to lockdowns. Time of year and weather have massive impacts on air quality too. So it'd be almost impossible to do a 'before' vs. 'after' data comparison yet. It's extremely unlikely that they'd be able to prove either way whether it is helping for a good couple of years at least. And even then it'll be messy because even if it did improve air quality in most places, some places will have got worse.

If they propose a change to the scheme early on, they'd probably be open to a challenge. It'd either mean they've not see the benefits they expected (in which case, the justification for having it in at all is void as lorries will have very different traffic patterns to cars) or they want to push the air quality even higher (but why didn't they do that from the beginning then)?

 

[cliffanger]

Seems to me if you want to go to Bath go by boat, any old chugger will do, how about a steam trawler chugging out smoke like a factory. No problem there then. ( If you can get the coal to burn )

But don’t expect to stop on the way up or down the river - every pontoon (and there aren’t many) are full of these …..

FLRTs - the R stands for ‘riverborne’!

The time restrictions are 48 hours, but they stay for months!

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