Both Birmingham and Leeds city councils are looking to introduce schemes similar to London’s ULEZ (Ultra-Low Emission Zones) in a bid to tackling the ‘crisis-level’ air pollution found in the cities. Only vehicles that meet Euro 4 for unleaded (generally manufactured after 2006) or Euro 6 for diesel (2015 onwards) would be exempt from the charge, although it’s thought that Leeds will only target the commercial vehicles such as taxis, buses and HGVs, whereas Birmingham will look to the private motorist also.

A spokesman for Birmingham City Council stated that the charge wasn’t about making money, that all surplus would go back into the city’s transport budget, and that this was purely as a measure to tackling city-wide pollution levels. The charge will cover every single road within the city centre, aside from the A4540 middle ring road; a perfect way to create a congestion zone.

Birmingham council’s own analysis into air quality found that the high pollution levels were responsible for shortening the lives of at least 900 residents.