Portsmouth clean air charge zone cameras to be installed

New traffic cameras are to be put up in a city next month in preparation for its forthcoming clean air zone.

Portsmouth's 39 Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras will monitor vehicles in the zone, which covers in an area in the south west of the city.

From November, high-polluting private hire vehicles and taxis will be charged £10, while buses, coaches and lorries face a £50 fee.

Portsmouth City Council said the cameras would only check number plates.

Most of the cameras will be placed on existing lamp columns and traffic signal poles from April.

However, a few will need to be installed on new poles, the council said.

Vehicles that will be charged include any diesel vehicles that do not meet Euro 6 emission standards - likely to have been registered before September 2015, and petrol vehicles that do not conform to Euro 4 emission standards - generally registered before 1 January 2006.

Private cars and vans are not currently included in the forthcoming daily charges.

Grants are being offered to affected motorists to allow them to either retrofit or upgrade their vehicles.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the authority has been allocated more than £6.6m to improve air quality in Portsmouth, including the cost of implementing the zone.

A trial hire scheme for e-scooters is currently running in the city until November.

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