Council chiefs have been accused of ‘staggering hypocrisy’ after shelling out £2,000 per DAY in taxpayers’ cash to hire vehicles for their new Low Emission Zone – despite telling residents they had years to get ready.
Edinburgh city council have become the latest local authority to have to pay vast sums as their own buses and vans are not compliant.
The embarrassing revelation also comes after Councillor Scott Arthur, Edinburgh’s transport convener, who’s now also a Labour MP, stated last year: ‘I can reassure you that, by the time the LEZ comes into force, every single one of the council vehicles will be LEZ compliant’.
Edinburgh introduced its zone, which bans older cars and vans from the city centre, on June 1 but we can reveal it has now paid out out thousands of pounds, despite stripping back other services, to hire 38 vehicles to replace its own ones which which, farcically, it has now banned.
The list includes ‘accessible buses’, vans, a 7.5 tonne dropside truck and an 18 tonne crane truck at a total cost of £28,770 for the first 14 days of the LEZ.
Edinburgh Council introduced the LEZ before all of its own vehicles complied with the scheme
It also comes after it was revealed this month that the council issued over 6,000 fines, worth around £375,000, to motorists caught in the zone in its first month.
The cash-strapped council also last year committed to spending an eye-watering £55million replacing over 1,000 vehicles to ‘ensure’ its fleet was compliant.
Critics said the zones are an unneccessary waste of money, adding that the sums spent hiring replacement vehicles would be hard to take for locals already having to deal with overflowing bins and pothole-strewn roads.
Scott Dixon, an Edinburgh-based motoring and consumer rights campaigner and author, said: ‘This revelation shows blatant and staggering hypocrisy by Edinburgh city council, who see motorists as cash cows to rinse at every opportunity, while they cannot get their own house in order.
‘To put this into perspective, £2,000 a day would go a long way to emptying bins, repairing potholes, clearing gulleys and general street cleansing. Instead, it’s being wasted due to the council’s incompetence.
‘The council has a bottomless pit of money to waste on fantasy, vanity projects and hire vehicles to meet LEZ standards, yet ordinary people are left to carry the can and pay for it.’
Drivers were hit with 6000 LEZ fines in the first month after scheme was introduced
Sue Webber, Conservative MSP for the Lothians, said: ‘This sums up the shambolic rollout of the LEZ across Edinburgh.
‘Hard-pressed motorists who are being hit by fines will be shocked the council have spectacularly failed to get their own house in order before bringing these new rules into force.
‘At a time when savage SNP cuts are continuing to hurt council budgets, this is the last thing the local authority should be shelling out money on.’
It follows our revelations that Glasgow city council, which introduced Scotland’s first LEZ last year, has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds hiring vehicles to replace its fleet which does not comply.
An LEZ was introduced in Edinburgh, along with Aberdeen and Dundee, last month despite widespread concerns from businesses and commuters, as well as our revelations that pollution is already well within legal limits.
Dundee city council stated last week that it has issued £187,650 of LEZ fines in their scheme’s first eight weeks.
Critics have pointed point to the vast financial cost, with the policy having cost over £55million to set up, as well as disruption to business and shoppers, and the disproportionate impact of the new restrictions on the less affluent, who are likely to have non-compliant cars.
When contacted for their position, Edinburgh city council sent a comment from Councillor Arthur, stating: ‘We’re preparing our fleet to be 100% LEZ compliant by the end of the year and we’ve achieved 96.5%.
‘Hiring compliant vehicles is necessary on a temporary basis while we wait for our own, specialist, vehicles to be built.
‘This will include new bespoke accessible transport for adults and children with specialist needs.’
