Clean Air Promise: Manchester’s Air Improved by 2026.
Exciting news from Greater Manchester as the city-region gears up to present an enhanced Clean Air Plan to the government. Recent air quality data indicates positive developments on local roads throughout the area.
The proposed plan aims to uphold a regulation that would not levy charges on any vehicle traversing city-region roads. It also lays out provisions for investing in new buses and establishing a fund to support taxi drivers in upgrading their vehicles.
Modelling projections suggest that the plan would align with the legal mandate to boost air quality by 2026 at the latest, a slight shift from the 2025 target mentioned in GM’s 2023 submission to the government.
Conversely, an alternative plan that envisions a charging Clean Air Zone benchmark in the heart of Manchester and adjoining zones of Salford would fall short of meeting the legal deadline.
A vital component of the proposed plan entails injecting funds into cleaner buses. Recent statistics reveal that advancements in the Greater Manchester bus fleet have played a pivotal role in enhancing air quality. Monitoring data for 2023 illustrates a decrease in air pollution compared to 2022, with levels substantially lower than those recorded pre-pandemic in 2019.
Five years ago, nitrogen dioxide exceedance was detected at 129 locations. This number has since declined to 64 sites across the city region.
The progress can be attributed, in part, to the infusion of hundreds of cleaner buses, including Zero Emission Buses for the Bee Network. Previously, less than 1% of vehicles were electric, but now that figure exceeds 10% in areas where buses are locally managed. Once the bus franchising process concludes in January, marking around 70% of the fleet as less than 12 months old, the electric bus ratio will surpass 15%.
This trajectory indicates that Greater Manchester is on track to have one-third of its bus fleet electrified by 2027, with a long-term goal of transitioning to an all-electric bus fleet by 2030.
Despite swift progress in electrifying bus depots – completion of work at Bolton and Oldham with further upgrades planned at Middleton, Ashton, Hyde, and Bolton in the coming year – the plan acknowledges a delay in establishing a new all-electric depot in Stockport. The electrification of the Queens Road depot is now expected to conclude by the end of 2025.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester are resolutely committed to establishing an all-electric bus depot and fleet in Stockport.
Furthermore, the revised Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan incorporates refinements to air quality modelling methodologies, aimed at predicting, understanding, and managing forthcoming levels of air pollution. The updated plan also encompasses data on the routes of Bee Network buses within the city region, along with rectifications in the emissions modelling of government-sponsored retrofitted buses.
The revised Clean Air Plan has been documented in a report presented to the Greater Manchester Air Quality Administration Committee. The committee is anticipated to ratify and present the updated plan to the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit during its meeting on Tuesday 1 October. The final Clean Air Plan will be determined by the government.
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