Leicester City Council has been awarded £672,000 by the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) to help it extend work to clean up exhaust fumes and harmful emissions from buses in the city.
In total, 42 buses that provide services in Leicester will be adapted to make them cleaner to run, as part of the city’s efforts to cut air pollution.
In recent years, Leicester City Council has worked with the main local bus companies to fit pollution filters to 211 diesel buses operating on the city’s main routes.
This means that a bid to create a city centre clean air zone for buses, where all vehicles meet the highest Euro 6 standard for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions, has already been delivered.
Now the new funding will see the council work with six bus operators to see the filtering technology retrofitted to 42 vehicles operating on routes on the outskirts of the city, including some school buses and coaches.
Commenting, Leicester City Council’s Deputy City Mayor and Lead on Environment and Transport, Councillor Adam Clarke said: “Tackling emissions from diesel vehicles is an ongoing and vital part of our work to further improve air quality across the city.
“Working in partnership with local bus operators, we have already made huge investment to cut emissions and reduce pollution from the vehicles. I am proud to say that we are already delivering on our pledge to deliver a clean air zone for buses in and around the city centre.
“This latest funding will allow us to extend that and support other important local bus services to upgrade their vehicles to highest European clean air standards.”
As part the Transforming Cities Programme, Leicester City Council is also investing almost £5m to help replace diesel vehicles with ultra-low emission electric buses on all local park and ride services, which are to be launched later this year.
