In Greater Manchester, plans to introduce a Clean Air Zone where the most polluting vehicles will be charged up to £60 a day have sparked a massive backlash.
But the controversial zones are being introduced in England's other biggest cities too - or at least some of them.
And while local authorities across London, Birmingham and the North of England are being forced to take action to bring down air pollution levels, they are taking very different approaches.
READ MORE : Andy Burnham calls for 'major changes' to controversial Clean Air Zone scheme
In Bradford its Clean Air Zone was delayed, in part because of a national shortage of non-polluting vans and lorries, while Sheffield's is limited to a smaller area of just the city centre.
York decided against cameras and charges to clean up its air and instead simply banned diesel buses from the city centre, and Leeds won't be introducing a charging zone at all as air quality has already improved.
In Birmingham, where private cars are included, car journeys in the city centre have fallen but in some areas businesses have suffered.
And in London, where there are three different systems of road charging, Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to go further still and charge motorists by the mile.
Taxi and van driver backlash: Have a listen to a Clean Air Zone special episode of The Northern Agenda podcast
The Clean Air Zone has been years in the pipeline and has its roots in a series of successful court challenges by the environmental group Client Earth.
After repeatedly losing to the campaigners in the High Court, ministers passed legal responsibility for slashing air pollution levels – specifically nitrogen dioxide – to local authorities.
But how do the different zones across the country compare - and when are they coming in?
Sheffield
Air pollution contributes to 500 deaths a year in Sheffield, with the toll including lung cancer and cardiovascular disease and stroke.
The biggest cause of pollution is transport and specifically diesel vehicles.
Sheffield has been in breach of the legal limits for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) levels since January 2010.
Unlike Birmingham, Sheffield is not charging private cars to enter the city centre, as they make up 80% of road traffic but only 50% of the pollution.
Buses, vans, HGVs and taxis are responsible for half of city air pollution but only make up 20% of traffic.
In Sheffield, the clean air zone only covers an area of 2.3 square kilometres inside the city's inner ring road and charges are due to be introduced from late 2022 with non-compliant vans and taxis asked to pay £10 per day and coaches, buses and HGVs £50 a day.
The council told us that it originally asked for £37.7 million from the Government's Clean Air Fund to support vehicle upgrades but were only awarded £20.4 million.
It said in a statement: "We are not aiming to make money from the zone.
"Funds from the charge will go towards the upkeep of the zone and reducing air pollution in the city."
The council is not too concerned about the issue of vehicles just avoiding the charging zone and spreading pollution elsewhere.
It said buses, lorries, taxis, vans and coaches were generally going into the centre to provide a service like dropping off a passenger.
But the plans have faced opposition.
One cabbie told a recent meeting the “elephant in the room” was that the cost of upgrading to electric taxis to be compliant with the Clean Air Zone is between £48,000 and £60,000 – equivalent to around £900 per month over five years – and that many cabbies were already handing back their licences because it will not be viable.
And the council is still considering a range of exemptions to the charges on top of those which apply nationwide.
Bradford
In Bradford, partial data for the year to October 2021 shows that levels of nitrogen dioxide exceed the limit "at key locations".
A Clean Air Zone covering 22.4 square kilometres was meant to come into force this month but has been delayed until Spring to allow businesses more time to use the funding available to upgrade their vehicles.
Bradford council says the biggest health benefits to a clean air zone "will be in our deprived communities with the largest reductions at our schools", as one in five children in the city already has a breathing problem.
The Labour-run council has received £31.5m Clean Air Fund and £1.7m for electric vehicle funding, meaning it's had more funding than any other local authority to make this scheme work and can offer more generous grants and exemptions packages.
The cost of the clean air measures is being met by central government.
However, Bradford are "adding value" with health research funded by the National Institute for Health Research and complimentary air quality improvement programmes.
The council says 93% of HGVs and 86% of vans expected to enter the CAZ are from outside Bradford district.
Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Healthy People and Places said: “The Government has directed that Bradford district should have a Clean Air Zone and subsequently the Council has administered millions of pounds worth of grants to businesses to support them with the transition.
"The Council has had a lot of positive feedback from businesses who are being helped to upgrade their vehicles. However, there is a national shortage of compliant vans and lorries, with many companies reporting delays into next year for the delivery of their new vehicles.
"We have also taken into account the potential impact that new COVID restrictions could have on businesses as they adapt to the CAZ. This extended lead in period to the implementation of the CAZ will therefore assist businesses in making preparations."
York
In the Roman city of York, the council declared three areas where pollution exceeded targets, with older diesel buses a major contributor to poor air quality in the city centre and surrounding suburbs.
City leaders decided that rather than introduce a charging zone with expensive cameras and fines to bring pollution levels down, they would try an alternative approach where older diesel buses were banned from the city centre but council funding used to help operators switch to ultra-low emission vehicles.
The council gave £1.65m to five bus operators to help replace or retrofit 93 buses to comply with the standards of the clean air zone, while £3.3m from the Department for Transport's Low Emission Bus Scheme was used to support the delivery of fully electric buses and charging infrastructure at York’s Park and Ride sites.
It means that all of the Air Quality Management Areas - bar the city centre - have seen such significant improvements in their air quality that they no longer qualify to be part of the scheme and York has now met its air quality target for all pollutants.
All buses that enter the city centre CAZ five or more times a day must either be electric or diesel Euro VI.
Senior York councillor Paula Widdowson told The Northern Agenda podcast : "The result has been quite staggering.
"So from the last two years, and yes, we know the pandemic's played some part of it, but we have seen a dramatic decrease in pollution inside the city centre, and because it's buses, actually across the whole of the city, the whole of our region.
"So it's been tremendously successful. And the public love it.
"The drivers like it, and the drivers of the buses have also agreed through the Clean Air Zone to not idle for more than two minutes.
"So it has been a tremendous success, but it's voluntary. And we got no money from the Government for doing it. We did it ourselves."
The council has helped 170 taxis across the York fleet become either electric or petrol hybrid.
With another 60 or 70 taxis being converted this year, soon nearly half the fleet will be ultra-low emission.
A trial with a company called Tier, which makes electric scooters and e-bikes, sees 2,000 commuter journeys a week made on the vehicles.
And government funding has allowed city bosses to trial another new approach, where HGVS take goods up to hubs in the city and then for the final mile in the city centre, low-emitting vehicles such as electric milkcarts, go-bikes, cargo-bikes take them the rest of the way.
Can other cities learn from what York has done?
Cllr Widdowson says York's efforts are "completely replicable across the country".
She adds: "Sheffield has done a cracking job with their trams. So they have less buses, they have more trams, but they still got quite a lot of buses. So they could do exactly the same thing as we've done.
"And I'm talking to colleagues up in Durham County Council, and they're looking at putting the e-bikes in to reduce the congestion because they've got a city centre, much like ours but significantly hillier, so they're likely to go for e-bikes rather than e-scooters.
"Once we've got the trial on the last mile sorted again, we'll put that learning out to everybody.
"And if you're going to get taxi drivers to move from a cheaper vehicle to a more expensive vehicle, you've got to make sure that it's doable.
"So we didn't completely subsidise the cost of moving from one to the other.
"But we made it acceptable because there was some funding, some government funding, a little bit more from us, but also we've written into our charter that was in three years, they've got three years, all the taxis have got to be ultra low taxis."
Leeds
Plans to introduce a Clean Air Zone in Leeds were scrapped by the city council in 2020 thanks to businesses switching to cleaner vehicles faster than expected.
The much-delayed £29m scheme was paused that year due to unexpectedly positive air quality levels.
And in October a council report stated the zone, originally due to be introduced in January 2021, was "no longer required".
More than 90% of buses and 80% of heavy goods vehicles driven in the city now use cleaner Euro VI engines and therefore wouldn’t be charged if a zone was introduced.
Polly Cook, the council's chief officer for air quality, said at the time: "If traffic levels returned to pre-Covid levels, we would still not exceed legal limits."
A £6m camera system had already been installed to monitor the CAZ, with about 300 cameras placed at more than 100 junctions.
Work is still being done to improve air quality and get cars out of Leeds city centre, with councillors this month giving their support to a £40m scheme to widen the city's Armley Gyratory.
The planned upgrades include improved signalling and new footbridges, while work continues to pedestrianise large parts of the city centre.
Newcastle
Clean air tolls of up to £50 a day are still set to come into force in the city this summer - 18 months later than planned.
Many motorists will be hit with heavy fees from July when a new Clean Air Zone is launched in the city centre in a bid to tackle illegal emissions levels.
The charges will only affect older, high-polluting vehicles which do not meet environmental standards and all private cars will be exempt.
Lorries, buses and coaches will be charged £50 per day to drive into the city centre if they do not comply with emissions standards, while the worst-polluting vans and taxis will be charged £12.50 per day.
North East drivers who will be affected by the new tolls also face a nervous wait to find out what financial support they will get to upgrade their vehicles.
Newcastle and Gateshead councils announced last year that they planned to offer grants of up to £20,000 per vehicle to help individuals and companies make the switch to cleaner models, but that is dependent on the Government agreeing to pay for it.
A £23m request was submitted last year but ministers are yet to confirm whether or not they will fund the grants and applications are not yet open.
Birmingham
The Clean Air Zone in Birmingham, covering most of the city centre within the A4540 Middleway Ring Road, is unlike others planned in the North a 'Class D' scheme.
This means that private cars are included, though not motorbikes or mopeds.
With 67 cameras monitoring vehicles coming in and out, the CAZ came into effect last June 1, with charges starting two weeks later.
It was originally scheduled to go live in 2020; however, in response to the impact of Covid-19, the launch date was postponed.
Like other areas, Birmingham has been told by the Government it needs to reduce levels of NO2 in the air to a maximum average of 40μg/m3 as soon as possible, with 1,000 deaths a year attributed to air pollution.
It was revealed in December that around 8,000 fewer cars and vehicles are passing through Birmingham city centre each day since the introduction of the zone.
Figures from Aston University show that an average of 10,800 and 11,850 non-compliant cars have passed through the CAZ per day since the introduction of the charge, compared with an average of 18,787 before its introduction.
But the scheme has also been controversial for many.
Several local businesses say it has negatively affected both staff and customers at city centre locations.
And earlier this month people who were issued Clean Air Zone fines incorrectly received an apology following news a woman received 19 - despite living 160 miles away.
London
The capital is undoubtedly the place with the most schemes to tackle air pollution, which is thought to have led to the premature deaths of around 4,000 in 2019.
London has three road charging schemes, including the congestion charge which means nearly all vehicles entering central London must pay a fee.
The most recent change was that the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, which covers only older, more polluting light vehicles, such as cars, motorbikes and smaller vans, was expanded in October from central London to the North and South Circular roads.
The new zone is 18 times the size of the central London zone and now covers 3.8 million people.
On top of that, a Low Emission Zone applies to almost all of Greater London but only applies to older, more polluting heavy vehicles, meaning lorries, buses and some vans.
It means most vehicles will need to meet ULEZ emission standards or pay a £12.50 daily charge to drive inside the zone.
For petrol cars this means a Euro 4 emission standard and for diesel cars a Euro 6.
But Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan plans to go further and says London needs to charge motorists by the mile to hit climate change targets.
He wants road pricing to be implemented to encourage people who drive petrol or diesel cars in the capital to switch to public transport, walking, cycling or electric vehicles “where necessary”.
Research commissioned by Mr Khan found that a 27% reduction in London’s car traffic is required by 2030 to meet net-zero ambitions.
Road user charging would be a “simple and fair scheme” that could replace existing fees such as the Congestion Charge and Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), according to the report.
Greater Manchester
Drivers of non-compliant vans and taxis would be charged to drive into or within Greater Manchester from May next year under a government-mandated plan aimed at slashing illegally high levels of air pollution.
The zone, which covers all 10 boroughs and involves a network of nearly 900 cameras to check whether polluting vehicles are entering, is the biggest in the country.
But many of those affected say it will drive their businesses to the wall.
That has been exacerbated by a sharp rise in the cost of second hand vehicles during the pandemic – meaning there are fears that a government £120m support fund would not be sufficient to make the transition.
As a result the mayor and council leaders decided last week to go back to ministers in order to request more funding.
A directive published in 2020 ordered Greater Manchester to bring in a charging zone for the most polluting vehicles, apart from private cars, so that pollution could be cut to legal levels by 2024.
However global supply chain issues have seen the cost of second hand vans and taxis rocket during the pandemic, prompting further analysis of the business case by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
Leaders have decided to go back to the Government in order to have further conversations about funding for drivers, asking ministers for an ‘urgent and fundamental review’ of parts of the policy.
Earlier this month Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham suggested that it may be possible to have an alternative scheme that could still meet legal air pollution targets.
Liverpool
Liverpool City Council is currently considering whether to introduce a charging zone to bring its air pollution levels down, and reported in March that a city centre-wide zone was the best option it had seen so far.
The council has agreed it in principle but there has not yet been a public consultation.
'None of us want to breathe polluted air'
According to Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, "none of us wants to breathe dangerously polluted air, so the principle of tackling the sources of that pollution must be something we all support so long as the measures taken are targeted, tailored and proportionate".
But he says: "However that can itself be problematic because the result is a patchwork of zonal restrictions and charges that differ from place to place and could be quite confusing.
“Most of the current clean air zones only impose charges on non-compliant commercial vehicles, which may cause private motorists to sigh with relief - but those business costs will almost certainly find their way through to us as consumers.
“Many schemes, such as those around Greater Manchester, are being established with a ‘grace period’ to allow businesses time to reconfigure their vehicle fleets.
“Ultimately we need to develop the right mix of travel options – cleaner cars, vans, buses and trucks, and public transport that’s reliable, affordable and easy to use.”
“Clean air zones aren’t the only restrictions drivers may face – with road-space being reallocated to provided dedicated bus lanes, cycleways and widened footways.
"The question looking ahead is whether we’ll see ever more, ever tighter restrictions being applied, both to improve our air quality and tackle our carbon emissions.
"Frankly the transition to a zero-tailpipe emission future can’t come too soon.”
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