Six weirdest Birmingham Clean Air Zone controversies

The controversial Clean Air Zone (CAZ) in Birmingham City Centre has been in operation for a year.

Whether you are celebrating or seething at this news, you might be interested in some of the most unusual incidents to occur since its introduction.

First, a recap: the CAZ breezed into Birmingham on June 1, 2021.

What is the Clean Air Zone?

Part of a broader transport plan to limit pollution, the policy initiated an £8 charge for high-polluting vehicles travelling into the city centre.

Cars which qualify for the charge are older vehicles that do not meet emissions standards, and failure to pay results in a £120 fine. The zone is located within the city’s ring road.

Are drivers in favour of the Clean Air Zone in Birmingham?

It’s safe to say the penalty has had mixed reviews from the public and occasionally drivers have been confused when hit by fines they weren’t expecting.

The LDRS took a look back through the year’s coverage to find some of the most unusual Clean Air Zone related stories.

So what about the controversies?

1) A Mercedes driver was hit with Birmingham Clean Air Zone fines of £2,340 in error. James Hammond, from Minworth in Sutton Coldfield, got a shock when he received a whopping £2,340 in fines despite buying a 2003 Mercedes S500l deliberately to avoid CAZ charges. 

He drove into the city centre 13 times before the council hit him with the bill – a whole month later. The problem occurred because James’ private number plate registered as non-CAZ compliant. But after getting confirmation from the DVLA that the car was ok for the CAZ zone, the council told him he still needed to appeal each ticket separately.

2) Birmingham City Council was accused of risking a couple’s marriage – over £1k Clean Air Zone fines. One of the more bizarre CAZ incidents occurred when a Kent man had to convince his wife he hadn’t been having an extra-marital affair in the Midlands after he received fines for £1,000. 

Paul Murphy said he had never been “north of the Dartford Tunnel” but somehow a bill from Birmingham City Council landed on his doormat. The council explained a camera had misread the details of a similar car and apologised for the mistake.

3) Fine doubled for driver who ‘paid’ Clean Air Zone charge and lost appeal. Sean Alabaster claimed to have paid the £8 charge when travelling into Birmingham from his home in Wales for car maintenance work last December. However, he received a bill and, weirdly, a notice to say the £8 he paid on the day of his trip had been returned to his account.

4) Reg mix-up as driver gets Clean Air Zone fine because ‘M’ looked like a ‘W’. Another inter-county mix-up occurred when a Devon driver’s stationary motor home was slapped with a fine despite being parked off the road 180 miles away from Birmingham.  The photo accompanying the bill showed a car with a different numberplate.

The mistake happened due to an “M” on the car’s plate being mistaken for a “W” on the motorhome’s plate. The mother-of-one appealed the fine and was told to expect a response within eight weeks. The council said they wouldn’t discuss individual cases with the press.

5) Ambulance worker charged £8 twice for one trip through Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone. A damning indictment of the CAZ was issued by 73-year-old volunteer ambulance driver David Harris who said: “Their system is up the spout”. 

This was after he transported a patient from West Yorkshire to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham on July 6 last year. He returned on the same day – and the following day, he went online and paid the Clean Air Zone charge only to receive a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) three weeks later.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said the authority could not comment on individual cases. But they said: “The council has always made clear its intention to take a fair and reasonable approach to the introduction of the Clean Air Zone. In the lead up and since the launch, we have made it very clear that the onus is on drivers to ensure that they pay any entry fees on time and on the correct dates.”

6) Dad who’s never driven in Birmingham bombarded with Clean Air Zone fines after reg plate ‘cloned’. Finally, in a case of mistaken identity, a dad who had never driven in Birmingham was bombarded with Clean Air Zone fines. He claimed his registration plate was ‘cloned’. The dad-of-three, who runs a cake business with his wife, has to appeal each fine individually via Birmingham City Council’s website – which he now has bookmarked for speed. And despite having a West Midlands Police log number to report his number plate had been cloned, the letters are still coming. He had received 29 letters at the time the article was published.

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