Leigh MP James Grundy has welcomed the news that the Government is forcing Mayor Andy Burnham to scrap his controversial GM wide 'CAZ congestion tax' scheme.
The Government has today instructed Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to abandon his plans to institute a 500 square mile Clean Air Zone covering the whole of Greater Manchester.
Secretary of State for the Environment George Eustice has instructed Mayor Burnham to reduce the scope of any CAZ zone by '95% or more' to cover 'in practice, just Manchester city centre', and targeting the support schemes from the £132 million funding provided by the Government to help the much smaller number of businesses affected as a consequence.
Commenting, Leigh MP James Grundy said:
“Andy Burnham’s 500 square mile CAZ congestion charge zone covering the whole of Greater Manchester was an unavoidable job destroying tax on going to work.
“The fact the Mayor wanted to keep the 500 square mile zone with all the charging infrastructure left in place, on a promise that the zone would be non-charging, raised a great deal of suspicion amongst Conservative MP's in Greater Manchester. The Mayor could later have simply switched to a charging zone across GM at a later date.
“I'm delighted that the Government has instructed the Mayor to restrict any CAZ to central Manchester instead.
“This will come as a huge relief to many small businesses and working families across Greater Manchester, including in my constituency of Leigh, which should never have been included in the zone in the first place.”