HOW CLEAN IS YOUR CAR?
Drivers in Oldham will tomorrow be checked to see if they meet emissions targets, anyone caught “fuming” will face another M.O.T.
As part of the “Cleaner Vehicles Campaign” hosted by Manchester City Council, Oldham Council’s Environmental Health Officers are working with Greater Manchester Police and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities stopping cars and light vans in Oldham and conducting road side tests on the quality of the vehicle’s exhaust emissions. Both diesel and petrol engine vehicles will be tested.
Tomorrow is a further “enforcement day” across the Greater Manchester area where if any vehicle fails the roadside test, the driver or registered keeper will be issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice, which also requires the driver to get the vehicle to pass a further M.O.T. Exhaust Emission Test.
This intermittent work is important, as it is one of the many “actions” assessed annually by the Government’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (D.E.F.R.A.) and which are implemented to ensure that Council’s Air Quality Action Plan is making adequate progress.
The Air Quality Action Plan was produced as a response to the 2001 declaration of an Air Quality Management Area covering all ten Greater Manchester Local Authorities. This Management Area was required as the monitored and modelled ground level concentrations of oxides of nitrogen along the County’s Motorways and Primary Route Network was exceeding the relevant Air Quality Objective prescribed by the European Union and implemented within the United Kingdom through the National Air Quality Strategy.
Higher levels of this pollutant contribute with other pollutants, particularly smoky particles to known health effects including earlier deaths, asthma and other respiratory conditions.
Cabinet Member for Environment and Regeneration Councillor David Hibbert said: “The vehicle testing has been designed to encourage car owners to maintain their vehicles properly. A badly tuned car will waste fuel and add unnecessary pollutants to the environment. Global air quality is of increasing importance to us all and initiatives like this produce measurable improvements to our local air quality.”
Further information is available at www.cleanervehicles.org.uk