Emissions blitz on 30,000 vehicles

BY CHRISTIAN WOLMAR

Transport Correspondent

Checks on exhaust emissions of 30,000 vehicles - more than three times the normal number - are being carried out in an anti-pollution blitz by the Department of Transport.

Brian Mawhinney, Secretary of State for Transport, announced yesterday that temporary roadside checkpoints would target "dirty" vehicles in 23 cities and towns over the next few weeks. The three-month crackdown, which started in January, involves police, local authorities and the Vehicle Inspectorate.

In a pre-Christmas blitz, 461 out of 5,209 vehicles (9 per cent) were found to have illegal exhaust emission levels. Owners were issued with notices prohibiting the vehicle's use - except in exceptional circumstances - and given 28 days to carry out repairs. Dr Mawhinney says this will now be reduced to 14 days.

Vehicles with the worst exhaust emissions were taxis: 38 per cent of those stopped had illegal levels. Light vans were next, with 15 per cent of those stopped having illegal exhaust emissions.

Dr Mawhinney stressed that there would be sufficient resources to carry out the increase in the number of checks despite the fact that the Vehicle Inspectorate was originally scheduled for a 20 per cent cut in spending between last summer and the summer of 1996.

Previous "blitzes" appear to have been little more than publicity campaigns, according to the Department of Transport's figures which show that in the first nine months of the current financial year, only an extra 1,700 tests were carried out compared with the previous year, a rise of just under 7 per cent.

Dr Mawhinney also announced that the introduction of tighter MoT test emission standards, to come into effect next January, would be introduced in September, and that an urgent study would be carried out to spot engines that burn too much oil; no such test exists at the moment.

This announcement follows a speech to environmentalists by Dr Mawhinney in which he seems to be moving nearer the idea of accepting targets for environmental standards and even possibly for transport modes within certain areas; for example, setting targets for the proportion of journeys carried out by bicycle or public transport.

Dr Mawhinney's predecessors all opposed the targets, but the Secretary of State said: "Targets for reducing traffic - and other types of target - could be helpful not simply to government and local authorities in assessing the effectiveness of their policies. They could also be helpful to business, who would be able to judge more clearly whether their decisions on transporting goods and locating factories or officers were tending to help or hinder wider objectives."

However, Dr Mawhinney stressed that the proposed targets would have to be "realistic, challenging and achievable". And if changes were mooted, people would have to be won over to their necessity.

This was the second speech in a series in which Dr Mawhinney is trying to stimulate a debate on transport issues, and it was broadly welcomed by Stephen Joseph, the director of the pro-public transport group, Transport 2000.

Mr Joseph said that the issue of reducing car dependence would have to be addressed. "The UK does more car miles per head per year than any other European country, yet we have fewer cars and denser development than many."