Bristol Clean Air Zone

I wonder what the environmental impact of replacing a whole swathe of vehicles before their time will be.

We'd just leave at 3:01 pm and go as far as Cirencester. No problem arriving after 3pm. 

Just a thought, would you be allowed to drive around the site to dump waste water / fill between 7am and 3pm. I would think probably not.

I don't suppose we do anymore. Although we did when we bought the current Yaris 5 years ago. OH does not really like driving the X Trail but she does occasionally. However, we own it and it does not cost that much a year to run, £30 road tax, insurance and a service / MOT, plus a little petrol and it is very convenient having two occasionally. Although we have bus services, they don't actually go anywhere near the supermarkets without multiple changes, and we seldom use our bus passes at home. As it is out of warranty this year it will very much depend on its reliability how long we keep it. If it's like the last Yaris it will be for many years.

Why not pinch the European idea of selling different coloured 'crit air' stickers for city center access ?  At least that would be a 'joined up' system that the whole country would know about.Rather than individual Mayors banning all and sundry vehicles with no scientific evidence. 

A confused national picture helps no one. 

We run a 10 year old petrol Yaris, £30 a year road tax,  no plan to change it.

And a 6 year old  euro 5  Fiat based 6 metre motorhome. no plans to change that either.

I have a 12 year old diesel volvo estate. a 9 year old 6.5 ton Euro 5 diesel powered moho and a 4 year old petrol driven run around city car, I have no plans to change any of these until I Iose my C1+E licence and only then will I rethink our requirements.

What with Baltic Wharf under the threat of closure, it reads as though if you want to use the Bristol site, best do it sooner rather than later.

peedee

The government set pollution levels and due to some areas not achieving these councils are having to take more drastic actions. Maybe if they had acted earlier gradual changes could have been introduced and vehicle owners might have had more time to plan and adapt? 

So as DK said "we are where we are."

Ray 

I do tend to agree with you on the wider picture as there seems to be a complete lack of joined up writing from the Government on how individual Councils should approach the issue of inner city pollution. The German Umwelt scheme might work but what happens when the requirement is that only Green Badges are allowed into city centres? For many that would be the equivalent to a ban. Just down the road from Bristol is Bath and, if it's still going ahead, they plan to use road pricing to control pollution. So how do two cities less than twenty miles apart come up with totally  different solutions? Many of these schemes are a reaction to a problem rather than being a preventative measure. I can see lots of confusion in coming years with so many different systems.

David

A  Europe-wide environmental sticker system would be good. I already have two cluttering up my windscreen. Perhaps that is the "cunning plan" - fill up the windscreens with them so we can't see out to drive our vehicles.

why worry about LEZs the latest electric cars are not capable of towing the type of caravan that is on sale at present most hybrid cars have a towing limit of 750-850KG  so it will most probably be electric powered motorhomes  or camper vans in the future

With electric tow cars capable of towing hardly ANY of todays caravans,

Pure electric motorhomes are a long way off, and will be 'eye wateringly expensive'.    Motorhomes last for many many years and will have to be 'forced' from the roads...But we wont go quietly.