Glasgow HGV Operators Face Potential Costly Charges

If you operate older HGVs in Glasgow city centre, the new Low Emission Zone (LEZ) could see your profits go up in smoke from the beginning of June!

The Scottish government has a long-term strategy to reduce carbon and nitrogen dioxide levels in travel and improve air quality across the country – specifically in targeted hotspots in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.

One of its weapons in this battle is to discourage and penalise the use of older, more polluting commercial vehicles. The Transport Scotland Act 2019 provides the legislation to enable the creation and enforcement of Low Emission Zones:

• Glasgow – enforcement to start on 1 June 2023
• Dundee – enforcement to start on 30 May 2024
• Aberdeen and Edinburgh – enforcement to start on 1 June 2024

The Glasgow zone will:

• Impact on the city’s population of around 640,000 people and its thousands of businesses, and will affect commercial vehicles – including buses, lorries and vans.
• Cover an area where air quality is at its poorest – an area of the city centre bounded by the M8 motorway to the north and west, the River Clyde to the south and Saltmarket/High Street to the east.
• Operate 24/7, all year round, and will be enforced by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (APNR) cameras, which will record all vehicle movements in and out of the area.

The minimum compliance requirement for diesel HGV engines will be Euro 6 (vehicles registered roughly after September 2015). If a non-compliant vehicle is detected in the zone, a Penalty Charge Notice will be issued to the registered keeper of that vehicle.

• Set at national level by the Scottish Government for consistency across cities, the initial penalty charge for all non-compliant vehicles entering a LEZ in Scotland will be £60 – reduced by 50% if it is paid within 14 days.
• A scheme surcharge means that the penalty amount will double with each subsequent breach of the rules detected in the same LEZ.
• Penalty charges are capped at £960 for buses and HGVs.  Where there are no further breaches of the rules detected within the 90 days following a previous violation, the surcharge rate is reset to the base tier of charge which is £60.

If you don’t prepare for the change and mitigate against the daily charge, the financial impact on your business could be significant, especially if you’re operating older trucks into Glasgow’s LEZ regularly.

The simple fact is that LEZs are not far away. Operators will be keeping a close eye on how the industry adapts to the changes. Those who do business in various areas will have multiple LEZs to deal with and their financial impact could be significant, and could be too much for some operators. Some might go to the wall. Will you be one of them?