NEW legislation to reduce air and noise pollution from tour
buses in the city of Bath will come into effect soon.
Bath & North East Somerset Council will prepare a case to
put to the Traffic Commissioner which will allow the Council to
impose pollution conditions on these vehicles.
Bath & North East Somerset Council has been lobbying
the Government to make these changes to be able to reduce the
impact of the tour buses on the World Heritage City of Bath.
An application to apply Traffic Regulation Conditions to the
operation of the open top tour buses is being developed by the
Council. This should be submitted early in January 2005 to
the Traffic Commissioner who has the power to apply the
conditions.
Cllr Sir Elgar Jenkins, Executive Member for Transport and
Highways, said: “Bath & North East Somerset Council has been
working on this for a number of years and is delighted that
Government has at last given us the chance to control the impact of
these buses. Residents have suffered for too long.”
The impact of these changes will be to reduce emissions from the
vehicles to an acceptable level.
The precise detail will be subject to the Traffic Commissioner’s
approval but the Council will be looking for Euro IV
standards.
This is likely to mean that only the newest vehicles will be
able to achieve the reduction. It is also likely that this
will include controlling the use of loudspeaker systems for
commentary through the use of headphones.
Steve Howell, Head of Transportation and Highways, said “These
improvements should mean that less vehicles are in operation
because of the need to invest in new vehicles to meet the Euro IV
standard. I am sure that residents will be keen to see these
changes take place as soon as possible.”
ENDS
