Clean air zones affecting classics

Classic car owners need to stop worrying about clean air zones – at least if their vehicles are aged 40 years or older. For owners of so-called modern classics (i.e. anything younger than that), it gets complicated.

With very few exceptions, such vehicles will fall foul of clean air zones, and their owners will have to pay to enter (or be fined for doing so).

The owners of modern classics (sometimes called ‘youngtimers’ in Europe), some that are already cherished, most of which are private cars used as daily drivers, are faced with two grim choices: keep their vehicles, or rack up clean air toll charges.

Clean Air Zones in UK cities

Split across England and Scotland, city centre clean air zones – found across the country and operating (or soon to operate) in Aberdeen, Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Sheffield, fall into two distinct categories.

Tasked with improving air quality, debate is split as to whether or not they are (or are going to be) effective in tackling air pollution.

All clean air zones are concerned with NOx emissions (otherwise known as nitrous oxides), from petrol and diesel vehicles, otherwise known as exhaust gases.

Broadly speaking, these use minimum emissions levels for petrol and diesel cars, set at Euro 4 for petrols (cars built from 1 January 2006) and Euro 6 for diesels (built from 1 September 2015).

English clean air zones have four classes, but the one pertaining to private vehicles (i.e. cars) is known as Class D. Buses, coaches, taxis, private hire vehicles, heavy goods vehicles, vans, minibuses and yes, cars, all fall under this category (the local authority has the option to include motorcycles, too).

Birmingham and Bristol run Class D clean air zones, all with different charges to enter, that can be confirmed by a compliance checker which reads your number plate.

Bath, Bradford, Sheffield and Newcastle have established Class C clean air zones, charging buses, coaches, taxis, private hire vehicles, heavy goods vehicles, vans and minibuses to enter, all of which have boundaries (Bath’s, for example, starts near the Royal Victoria Park).

Greater Manchester also has a Class C clean air zone, but this remains under review, while Portsmouth’s clean air zone is run to Class B guidelines, charging buses, coaches, taxis, private hire vehicles and heavy goods vehicles. Like the other Class C zones, Class B clean air zones do not apply to cars, modern classics, or historic vehicles.

London’s ULEZ and Central London’s Congestion Charge

Let’s talk now about the London ULEZ, and Congestion Charge. The ULEZ’s boundaries, currently stopped between the North Circular and South Circular, moves to the Greater London boroughs from 29 August this year.

The ULEZ follows the same Euro 4 and Euro 6 guidelines for petrol and diesel vehicles, and also exempt classic cars in the historic tax class. Otherwise, owners of younger cars (modern classics and newer) pay £12.50 a day to enter the ULEZ, which runs 24 hours a day, midnight to midnight, every day of the year, except Christmas Day.

ULEZ requirements aren’t quite as straightforward as the emissions specifications suggest, however, as some (if not all) late 90s and early Noughties modern classics are in fact ULEZ compliant. We investigated this in our earlier feature about ULEZ busting historic vehicles from across the decades.

Many – but not all – manufacturers were building cars to Euro 4 requirements from 2000 onwards. CO2 emissions were added to the visible section of the V5 (log book) and used as a basis for the graduated tax scheme. The easiest way to check is to once again use the ULEZ compliance checker by typing in your number plate.

It's a simplification to understand Euro 4 as ‘just’ being about CO2; it’s a complicated collection of homologation paperwork standards that manufacturers had to keep in front of.

From an industry standard, this was going on the background well before it needed to be declared as ‘Euro 4’ on public paperwork; this didn’t happen on log books until 2006, when the standard became mandatory.

Car makers were building Euro 4 compatible engines well before Euro 4 itself (the ULEZ standard, let’s not forget) was a legal requirement; car club researchers found that many 2001-2002 cars met the Euro 4 standard, meaning a whole host of now classic vehicles won’t fall foul of ULEZ charges.

YouTuber AJVW went further, and found that Transport for London (TfL) in fact determines ULEZ eligibility through NOx emissions alone. This level is 0.08 g/km for petrols (set by Euro 4) and the same for diesels built to Euro 6 specifications.

In his video, he explains how if your car’s NOx emissions are lower than these levels, it can be marked as ULEZ exempt if it isn’t already deemed so by its plate.

However, this requires a Certificate of Conformity from the manufacturer of your vehicle; some charge, some do not, some have the documents to hand, others don’t send them out.

If you need to get a Certificate of Conformity, ringing TfL to have the car exempted or emailing cclondon@cclondon.com with the first three pages of your log book (and Certificate) should get the ball rolling.

Conversely, Central London’s Congestion Charge does not exempt classic cars. It costs £15 a day to enter, and runs from 07:00-18:00 Monday to Friday, 12:00-18:00 Saturday to Sunday and Bank Holidays. You are not billed between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, however.

Oxford’s Zero Emissions Zone (ZEZ)

Oxford takes a somewhat different approach to air pollution. Its local authority has run a pilot Zero Emissions Zone since 28 February, running along key routes – including New Inn Hall Street and St Michael’s Street – with a menu of charges depending on the emissions of your vehicle.

As the name implies, the ZEZ favours fully electric cars – owners of these vehicles do not pay to use it. Luckily, historic vehicles (as well as military, agricultural, and recovery vehicles) are exempt from ZEZ charges.

Scottish Low Emissions Zones

Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh all announced Low Emissions Zones (not to be confused with the London Low Emissions Zone) on 31 May 2022, with a two year grace period to give people time to source replacement vehicles or make alternative travel arrangements.

Glasgow confirmed a Low Emissions zone at the same time, but said its Low Emissions Zone to charge private cars would start on 1 June (with residents in the ULEZ allowed until 1 June 2024 to change to an emissions compliant vehicle).

Emissions requirements are the same as English Clean Air Zones and the London ULEZ (i.e. Euro 4 standards for petrols and Euro 6 levels for diesels) but exemptions for classic cars start from an age of 30 years, as per the European FIVA definition, rather than by the historic tax cut-off in England.

What about my classic car, then?

To review: are classic cars exempt from clean air zones? Yes - provided their tax class defines them as a historic vehicle. This can be changed when said vehicle reaches the right age by submitting key documents at your local post office.

Many famous old cars fall under the ULEZ tax exemption – including the 27-litre, Rolls-Royce Merlin-engined monster known as ‘The Beast’, built by the late John Dodd. It recently sold at auction for £72,500.

in 1980, long before the ULEZ and Congestion Charge, Dodd was summoned to the High Court for intellectual property infringement (though he still kept it registered as a Royce).

Historic tax, however, is granted on a rolling 40-year exemption, but it doesn’t work ‘to the day’ as you would first assume. It’s done by changing the tax class on the log book (V5) from ‘PLG’ to ‘historic’.

However, the situation isn’t as straightforward as you might think, as you can’t claim tax exemption ‘to the day’ as you might expect.

At time of writing, only cars registered before 8 January 1983 qualify for historic tax from 1 April 2023, as they are assumed to have been built in 1982.

The process is done at a post office, but cars registered from 8 January 1983 have a default build date (as far as the DVLA system is concerned) of the end of December 1983, and thus unfortunately, can’t have historic tax applied until 1 April 1984.

Owing to this anomaly, you may have to give evidence to the DVLA that a car registered between 1-7 January 1983 was actually built the previous year, as the post office's systems may not recognise it as a 1982 vehicle - thanks to that default later build date.

In this case, you'll need to do the tax change process via the DVLA instead of at your local post office. Manufacturers and car clubs can help with build sheets or Heritage Certificates etc, to prove when the car was made – this varies by make and model.

English Clean Air Zone, UItra Low Emissions Zone and Zero Emissions Zone exemptions are linked to historic tax status, while Scottish Low Emissions Zone exemptions kick in once a car is aged 30 or older.