UCS Stockport
Our retail cars are all CAZ (Clean Air Zone) and ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) compliant. We recommend you do not buy a used car unless it meets the CAZ regulatory standards. This is to avoid being taxed every time you drive within one of the clean air low emissions zones. We have many government taxes and duties for driving cars. Local councils are now at liberty to tax motorists to help fund their services and make payments to central government. The two current methods are ULEZ and CAZ. These are operative and expanding. The tax to drive within the clean air zones will render many cars as scrap value only, and are likely to cause hardship to working-class people. If you are driving a non-compliant car, there is no better time to change. We recommend you change to a compliant car before the majority of UK drivers realise the looming costs and large numbers of cars are disposed of in haste. Such disposal risks saturating the market, with the resultant diminution of the price of non-compliant cars.
ULEZ Ultra Low Emissions Zone (this is for the London Area only)
The ULEZ now covers all areas within the North and South Circular Roads. The North Circular (A406) and South Circular (A205) roads are not in the zone yet, however it is speculated that the M25 will be the next boundary.
Even if you make a short trip inside the zone using a vehicle that doesn't meet the ULEZ emissions standards, you are required to pay the £12.50 daily charge. This includes residents of the ULEZ. However, you don't pay the ULEZ charge if you are parked inside the zone and don't drive.
CAZ Clean Air Zone.
CAZ is similar to ULEZ in how it operates. Some English cities are taxing drivers already with others due to do start. The current fees are around £8-£9 per day for a non compliant car. Current CAZ cities include Bath and Birmingham. Planned CAZ cities include Bradford (charging starts on 26 September 2022), Bristol (charging starts on 28 November 2022), Greater Manchester (under review), Portsmouth, Sheffield (charging starts in early 2023), Tyneside - Newcastle and Gateshead (charging starts in winter, late 2022 to early 2023).
Scottish cities have the CAZ tax coming and Wales is also set introduce them.
Birmingham, approximately 100,000 non CAZ compliant vehicles pay a daily charge of between £8-£50. In its first week. Those who failed to pay in that first week numbered 44,106 which attracted fines at £120 each. That is an income of £5,292,720 per week if everyone pays. If that number of fines continues, that is a whopping 275 million pounds per year from people driving older non-compliant cars in fines alone. This is viewed by many as punitive and unsustainable, particularly as older cars are mostly driven by the poorer members of our society, who in reality are the least likely to be able to pay the fines, daily charges or afford a new battery powered car. Finding somewhere to plug in battery powered cars is the next challenge. There aere not enough charge points to equal the cars due to be forced off the roads.
The map below shows current and planned CAZ cities.
