Greater Manchester is working to clean up air pollution on local roads.
The government has directed the 10 Greater Manchester local authorities to achieve compliance with legal limits for nitrogen dioxide as soon as possible and by 2026 at the latest.
Government has approved Greater Manchester’s investment-led Clean Air Plan which does NOT include a charging Clean Air Zone.
To find out more about our Clean Air Plan and the next steps, please visit the Clean Air Plan page.
You can also read the frequently asked questions below for more information.
Infrastructure, procurement, signage and costs
The development of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan is funded by the Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU), the joint Defra (Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs) and DfT (Department for Transport) unit established to deliver national plans to improve air quality and meet legal limits. The costs related to the Plan’s implementation and operation are directly funded or underwritten by JAQU.
All reasonable costs associated with the development of the new plan, including the essential requirement to update existing signage, will continue to be funded by government.
Following competitive tenders run by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) on behalf of the 10 local authorities, the following companies were appointed to deliver work for the Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone:
Egis: Responsible for the installation and maintenance of around 900 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, and a Clean Air Zone office to handle payments, discounts, exemptions and financial reconciliation along with any penalty charge notices (PCNs) that are issued to non-payers of the charge.
McCann & Company Limited: Five-and-a-half-year contract to design, manufacture, install, maintain and decommission more than 2,200 signs to support the Clean Air Zone.
Legal Services Alliance: A collaboration of Squire Patton Boggs and BDP Pitmans advising TfGM on the project.
TfGM, acting on behalf of the ten Greater Manchester local authorities, contracted with McCann & Co Ltd for the installation, maintenance and decommissioning of around 2,200 signs needed across 18 local authorities for a Greater Manchester wide Clean Air Zone. These included the ten Greater Manchester local authorities and the eight neighbouring authorities of Calderdale, Kirklees, Derbyshire, Cheshire East, Warrington, St Helens, Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen. The value of the contract is £3.04m. Expenditure to the end of November 2023 on this contract was £2,160,089.
In February 2022, after the review of the Clean Air Plan was announced, signage installation on the local road network was paused and a sticker to cover the planned opening date on installed signs was required. A further order was awarded to McCann for £120,000 for 1,309 ‘Under review’ stickers and to apply them. McCann was responsible for applying the stickers to the signs in the following local authorities: Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Calderdale, Kirklees, Derbyshire, Cheshire East, Warrington, St Helens, Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen. The following local authorities applied the stickers to the signs in their own areas at a total cost of £69,300: Bolton (£11,500), Bury (£6,900), Salford (£14,200), Stockport (£17,000), Tameside (£3,500), Trafford (£9,300) and Wigan (£6,900).
The cost of the signage, including any need to update it, is funded or underwritten by JAQU.
National Highways is responsible for the work carried out on signage on the Strategic Road Network, which includes motorways. We don’t have details of the costs for this work.
The automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras installed for the formerly planned Clean Air Zone have been used to support the development of the investment-led, non-charging GM Clean Air Plan – by helping GM better understand:
The current vehicle fleet on the city-region’s roads and their emissions.
Where the city-region would get the greatest emissions reductions by tackling polluting vehicles travelling regularly through GM’s most nitrogen dioxide polluted places.
However, once Greater Manchester’s local authorities meet their nitrogen dioxide legal limits and have achieved compliance with the government’s legal direction, the ANPR cameras will no longer be needed for Clean Air Plan purposes.
Greater Manchester Police can currently make formal requests for ANPR data to help them gather evidence for criminal investigations.
If the government supports Greater Manchester using the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras installed for the formerly proposed Clean Air Zone to be used for law enforcement activity, there will be a public consultation on any such measures.
TfGM, acting on behalf of the ten Greater Manchester local authorities, contracted with Egis Projects SA to deliver the Clean Air Zone service contract required for a Greater Manchester-wide category C charging Zone. This included the installation and maintenance of ANPR cameras, a public-facing Clean Air Zone office to handle payments, discounts, exemptions and financial reconciliation along with any Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). Expenditure to the end of November 2023 on the contract, including ANPR cameras, was £21.6m. In addition, the operational expenditure for the Clean Air Zone up to the end of November 2023 was £11m.
All reasonable costs associated with the Clean Air Zone, including the installation of ANPR cameras, continue to be funded or underwritten by government.