Bradford City Council has confirmed it is carrying out a formal high-level review of the city’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) after council leader Stephen Place of Reform UK called for the daily charges to be scrapped.
Place, who leads Reform’s group on Bradford Council, told BBC Politics North that the CAZ charges were having a negative impact on businesses and traffic in the area. He said he would retain the enforcement zone itself but argued that the financial penalties were causing unnecessary harm. His position has attracted support from Conservative councillor Geoff Winnard and the leader of the Your Bradford Independent Group, Talat Sajawal.
Bradford’s CAZ is the only clean air zone in the UK that directly charges taxi and private hire vehicles that do not meet emission standards, with a daily fee applying to non-compliant hackney carriages and PHVs operating within the Bradford outer ring road. The zone launched in September 2022 after the council was ordered to improve local air quality by the government in 2018, and received £39 million in national funding to support the transition — including grants of up to £10,000 for taxi and PHV operators to upgrade to cleaner or fully electric vehicles.
The results have been significant. Bradford Council’s own Air Quality Annual Status Report for 2025 recorded that the number of locations breaching legal air-quality limits had fallen from 35 to just two. The taxi and PHV fleet, which was already around 60% compliant before the zone launched, is now considered one of the cleanest in the country. The council has also cited around 700 fewer monthly GP and hospital visits for breathing and heart conditions as a result of the improved air, saving the NHS more than £30,000 a month.
Green Party group leader Matt Edwards and Labour leader Imran Khan have questioned how a non-charging version of the scheme could work in practice. Any revenue raised by the CAZ can only be reinvested into further air quality improvement schemes — removing charges would affect that funding stream.
The council has said it will look carefully at whatever proposals come from Reform, but no decision has been made. It’s a debate that will matter greatly to Bradford’s taxi and private hire trade, who have invested heavily in cleaner vehicles under the current framework.
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