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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a consultation on how to introduce Clean Air Zones in five cities in order to improve air quality.
Birmingham, Derby, Leeds, Nottingham and Southampton will be required to have these zones by 2020 in order to help hit Government air quality targets, although other local authorities will be able to introduce zones should they wish to.
The zones will be targeted in areas of cities where air quality issues are most prevalent, and discourage the most polluting vehicles - such as old buses, taxis, coaches and lorries - from entering the zones.
According to the consultation documents, private car owners will not be affected, but Birmingham and Leeds are planning to discourage the use of diesel vans.
These clean air zones follow a few days on from the mayor of London launching a consultation about the expansion of the capital's Ultra Low Emission Zone, and comes a day after the Government pledged an additional £35m to help incentivise the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles.
The Government is looking for views on the draft Clean Air Zone Framework which sets out how the zones should be implemented.
According to Defra, local authorities will only be able to set charges at levels designed to reduce pollution and not raise additional revenue.
Further details are set to be decided following a further consultation and Government-funded studies, Defra added.
"We need to tackle air pollution and creating Clean Air Zones will improve the quality of life for people who live and work in our towns and cities, both now and in the future," said environment minister Therese Coffey. "Real progress has been made, but there is more to do, which is why we have also committed more than £2 billion to greener transport schemes since 2011."
The consultation closes on 9 December and can be found here.
Responding to the publication of the consultation, Christopher Snelling, FTA's head of national and regional policy raised concerns about small businesses not being able to afford to operate: "FTA believes that introducing this too soon, and without support, would not only impose substantial costs on the whole logistics industry, but would significantly disadvantage small businesses that use vans."
"We all understand the need to continue to reduce the impact on human health of emissions, but as the proposals stand there is a real chance many small businesses will be disproportionately affected and locked out of their current work," he added."The key issue for us is the timescale for implementation. If this is done in 2019 there would not yet be a sufficient market in compliant second hand vans for small businesses to be able to compete."
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