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Air pollution500 deaths early in the year SheffieldTransport emissions are one of the largest contributors to climate change, which is already having devastating effects on the planet.
The council has declared a climate emergency in recent years and committed to becoming carbon-zero by 2030. It has encouraged businesses, organisations, and individuals to switch to electric vehicles through various schemes, including electric van and taxi trials and an electric car salary sacrifice program. It also announced plans for banning non-electric ice cream vans. Vendors claim this will make them unprofitable.
Although Sheffield is facing a crisis, it is a city-wide effort. However, analysis by the local democracy monitoring service revealed that the local authority is not meeting its commitments to decarbonise local transport.
To meet its 2030 net zero goal, the authority will need quadruple its rate of decarbonising its fleet. It still has 173 vehicles below the emission standard, which all buses, taxis, vans and lorries will have to comply with.
Jenny Carpenter, of South Yorkshire Climate Alliance’s Transport Group, said: “The slow progress in ‘greening’ its own vehicle fleet is alarming and embarrassing.
“We have been assured that the Clean Air Zone is intended to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles rather than to make money in levies from dirty vans, lorries, buses and taxis, but as things stand the council’s own vehicles will be among the culprits.”
Councillor Douglas JohnsonExecutive member for climate change transport and environment, Jeremy Sullivan, acknowledged that the authority was not on track and needed to improve.
He said: “Like any other large organisation, the council has a large fleet of vehicles of varying ages. We can’t pretend that we can just reduce the number of polluting vehicles overnight. However, the council can always do more to ensure that all new vehicles are cleaner ones and it is disappointing that we still have this large number of diesel engines on the city’s roads. Electric vehicles are now far more common and hydrogen opens up possibilities too.”
Coun Shaffaq MohammedLeader of Sheffield Liberal Democrats, he stated that he expects more progress, especially after Labour formed an alliance with the Green Party following May’s local elections.
He said: “As a city council, if we are asking people to have better standards of vehicles then we have to lead by example.
“Having only seven percent of our own vehicles as electric is not a great starting point, particularly when the cabinet member involved is Douglas from the Greens.
“The council has committed to 2030 as going carbon neutral, transport is a huge factor in that.
“We have been very critical of the council both Labour previously and this new Green and Labour coalition. There has been a lot talk about declaring the climate emergency, but very little has actually been done on the ground. Here is living evidence of that. [the local democracy reporting service].
“Warm words at the Town Hall don’t actually translate into action on the ground, the facts speak for themselves. Seven percent of the council fleet is electric, we have committed to going carbon neutral by 2030 – what is the route there? There are 93 percent of vehicles that need to be dealt with.”
How far behind is Sheffield Council
The council announced in 2019 a plan to replace its vehicle fleet by electric or ultra-low emission vehicles within six years. This is to achieve clean air compliance and prioritize electric.
It should now be half way through this programme but it has only increased the number of electric vehicles in its fleet – which includes cars, vans and ride on mowers – from two at the end of 2019 (0.18 percent of its fleet) to 73 as of March 2022 (seven percent of its fleet) – a rate of around 30 vehicles per year.
Electric vehicles are not expected to match diesel and petrol prices until 2025, the year the programme was due to be completed, meaning if it continues at its current rate, only about 15 percent of the council’s fleet will be electric when the programme was meant to end.
Even City Taxis committed to an electric fleet by 2025, taking 2,000 vehicles off the road.
In order to hit its 2030 zero carbon target, the council will need to upgrade 973 vehicles in its fleet to electric within the next eight years – a rate of around 121 vehicles per year. This is four times the amount of vehicles it is currently replacing.
Johnson stated that the council is still working on net zero, but it is not on track right now.
He said: “We have a diverse fleet where some replacements cannot currently be met by the ULEV (ultra-low emissions vehicle) market. We are increasing the emission of our fleet whenever possible. As the market develops and matures our rate of vehicle conversations will increase in line with the 2030 target.”
Chris Broome, of South Yorkshire Climate Alliance’s Transport Group, said the council’s slow progress is not just in transport: “It is three years since the city council declared a climate emergency and resolved to achieve net carbon zero by 2030. It has not made any tangible progress towards this goal. While the commitment brought a much needed sense of urgency to addressing the climate emergency, the council has so far proved unable to match this with adequate action in any sector.”
Sheffield Council should lead by example
Arup published a path-map for Sheffield that would make it carbon zero by 2030. The council was required to lead from the front. This included decarobinising the entire fleet.
“By progressing with its own assets, the council can show leadership, address barriers and provide examples”, it said.
It added: “By taking action early, the council can indicate to the rest of Sheffield that change is possible.”
Arup stated that although moving away completely from motor vehicles towards active travel and public transportation would bring additional benefits that only swapping for cleaner vehicles cannot, cars and vans will continue to play a role in any transport system over the next many decades.
According to the report, the best way to reduce carbon emissions is to switch from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric ones.
On the importance of its recommendations, Arup said: “They are essential to move the ethos of the city, to change behaviours and to ingrain climate action into everything everyone does.
“These actions unlock the potential of the city – without them, all seemingly more direct action will be manifestly harder to implement and will ultimately be less successful, making achieving the target all but impossible.”
Will Sheffield Council be required to charge its vehicles in the Clean Air Zone
The CAZ will charge taxis, vans and coaches as well as buses, coaches and lorries not meeting Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 gasoline emission standards.
A council officer confirmed that the authority currently has 173 vehicles that fall below this standard. Among them, 104 are Euro 4 Diesel and 69 Euro 5 Diesel.
The council didn’t respond to a request to detail the type of vehicles that were involved, such vans that will be subject to charges in the zone and cars that will be exempt.
Johnson said that while it hopes to at least make its fleet compliant in the time allowed, it is unlikely to replace all these vehicles before the CAZ comes in.
Coun Johnson added: “Some of these vehicles will be subject to the Clean Air charge, which the council will have to pay too. The zone is expected to come into force later in 2022 but it depends on the speed of government approval.”
