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No, they are not.

You can reduce train emissions by electrifying the network, but that won’t happen anytime soon. There were originally other locations in the city centre which weren’t compliant. If they become compliant and the station area isn’t and won’t be due to train emissions, you would hope that there might be a conversation with the government.

The council won’t be buying any buses. They are not the public transport authority. It’s the MCA who are looking to introduce franchising, not the council. They are completely different organisations.

They have an easy way of avoiding it, just stick to the rules…..

When the council are going to enforce a location, they check it for legal compliance with regard to the legal orders, signs and roadmarkings. If anything isn’t in accordance with current standards it gets amended. The council keep a regularly updated file of photographic evidence of signing and lining at each enforcement site for use in any appeals against fines issued. Drivers who feel unfairly fined can appeal to an independent adjudicator. In my experience the adjudicators tend to err on the side of the motorist. Many appeals are successful, so it does pay to appeal if you feel you have grounds.

Yes, that’s what I meant, as soon as they have satisfied the legal requirements, which means all sites in the zone have to be compliant for 2 years. You’d hope that if the only exceedance of the legal limits is at the rail station, there might be a conversation with the government to see if the CAZ can be removed, as the government are the only ones who can reduce / remove the emissions from the trains.

Manufacturers have significant lead-in times for building the vehicles. The MCA may have had to grab what production slots were on offer. The government funding also has tight timescales for spending the money, so better to get it spent quickly and avoid any risk of having to give it back

The government made them implement the CAZ. As far as I can see, neither the government nor the council wanted to do it, they just had to following the court action. The council are being prudent and setting aside money to decommission the system when it’s not needed anymore. Other places that have CAZ’s are doing the same. But, you still criticise them. The council is run by politicians, who want to be re-elected. They will probably see it as a vote winner to decommission the CAZ as soon as they can. So, you might be pleasantly surprised.

The information concerning the bus operator is commercially sensitive, hence the redaction. I’ve seen the similar documents from another area, which involved multiple operators. They also redact information concerning the operators, particularly how much money they receive from the grant and how much of their own money they are contributing.

It matters to some. Some people have an aversion to public transport being provided by private companies for profit. Lots of people look at how things are run in London and think it’s better. I’m not sure that they see how much TfL are losing and appreciate how it all actually works. You don’t need to be patronising, I know very well where to find timetable and fare information. Others say they find it confusing that operators have their own ticketing and timetable setup and so do the MCA. A single source of info and fare system would be seen as beneficial. As has been discussed at length before, people around here ( and elsewhere) have a perception that a publicly owned / operated system would provide cheaper fares as there wouldn’t be the profit element. Some think that the service will be better / more frequent. I’m not so sure. Perhaps better to see how Manchester and others get on with it first before deciding, but politicians won’t want to be seen as lagging behind.

He’s only doing what most of the other mayors are doing. It’s been on local / regional politicians wish list ever since deregulation in 1986, but the regulatory framework hasn’t really allowed it to happen until recently.

The things that might improve could be: Branding - all the vehicles would have the same livery, the vehicles would be to an agreed standard, there would be a single source of timetable information. Ticketing- there would be a single ticketing structure Downsides would be that there’s a big financial risk. If the tenders for operating the routes come back more expensive than the authorities estimate, decisions have to be made on what can be cut or where the extra money is coming from. Politicians won’t be able to point to operators anymore, they will have to take responsibility. People on here with industry knowledge will tell you that the public ownership / operation of public transport led to poor standards of safety / vehicles / maintenance and deregulation was in part caused by this.

Not silly at all. Yes, poverty / deprivation is factored into decision making at local, regional and national levels. Policies and strategies adopted by councils, MCA’s etc tend to have something about equity in them. Decisions are linked to policies and strategies. You’ll see this specifically mentioned in reports to council bodies / committees / decision makers, which contain specific questions about the impacts on equity. As others have pointed out on here, imposing a measure which requires people to swap to a newer vehicle disproportionately affects those on lower incomes. Existing taxes and regulations are what they are. When politicians are introducing something new, they will consider the impacts.

You’d expect that the government looked at all their potential options, but once they had been successfully prosecuted under an existing law, would changing that law be an option to get them out of the consequences?

There is

That comes across as a very callous statement. For someone of genuinely limited means, changing their vehicle can be a significant issue.

Other places like Bath and North East Somerset seem to be able to deliver a comprehensive monitoring and reporting regime, see this page. Would be disappointing if SCC can’t do something similar.

Surely it’s about complying with the law. Legal limits on air quality are being exceeded. The charging is one of the options the government put in place for the mandated councils. Those who proposed one of the non charging options had to produce a business case and modelling to prove it would work. Some could, others couldn’t. So, you have no evidence to support your opinion that it’s being done to make money, but continue to peddle that view anyway.

Yep, because that’s what the government put in place.

Parking enforcement isnt dealt with by the licensing dept. The enforcement team do try to deal with ranking issues but what usually happens is when the CEO’s turn up, the taxis drive off and come back when they are gone. Some of the access road into the station is private land and the council can’t enforce it anyway.

As you will no doubt be well aware, people tend to take notice and act when it costs them something. I believe if you asked any of the councils which have been mandated, they’d tell you they would have preferred not to have to charge. So will you answer the question posed? Do you think the government introduced CAZ’s in order to make money for a few local councils.

Do you actually think the government went to all the trouble of setting up CAZ’s to help local councils make money? The reason CAZ’s are there is well documented and it’s very clear why the government have acted. I find it rather odd that you and others are still trying to make out it’s some form of money making scheme.

I’ve only seen them once. They were operated by a private company. Looked like the one in the picture. My guess would be that the contractor carrying out the works had them in place for security reasons. Theft from construction sites is a significant issue after all. In the initial post the OP mentions some steps to a trail being closed, so it’s not clear whether any highway ( which can be a footpath etc) closure is involved. The things are automatic devices. They record images when they detect movement and give out recorded voice messages. They just need adjusting if they are triggering when people are passing on the public highway, thats all. I’d guess there are contact details on the device if anyone wants to mention it to the suppliers/operators.

I’ve seen them used on a road closure in Derbyshire a few months back.

This is poor and unsafe advice. Public highways are sometimes closed. That might be because of a safety issue or work is in progress and it isn’t safe for the public to use the highway. The cameras / messages are just reinforcing that the highway is closed and people should not be in the restricted area. Telling people to ignore this isn’t a great idea.