Sheffield Clean Air Zone 'costing local construction businesses £50,000 a year': Nick Fletcher

Pedestrianisation is already doing untold damage to the local economy, and one of these schemes in my city would surely be the final straw.

I recently visited Sheffield and Doncaster and asked businesses there what they thought of the schemes.

One contractor in Sheffield said that he had 20 vans on a construction site, so the scheme introduced in the city earlier this year is going to cost him close to £50,000 this year in extra fees. Every construction site in every city with such a scheme will now face similar costs, and as we all know, those costs will eventually be passed on to the public.

Carers, tradespeople, health workers and others will be prevented from working by the punitive charges.

There is much opposition to road user charging schemes. Nobody disputes that we all want cleaner air; the question is whether clean air zones and ultra low emission zones are the way to achieve that.

Personally, I think not. In tourist hotspots, where visitors come from all over the world to spend money, an American or Chinese tourist will not be put off central London because of the ULEZ, but even then, it still hurts everyone who works in the city who needs a vehicle.

I know some people will still argue that the ULEZ is needed in the very centre of London, but what about Sheffield, Doncaster and thousands of other towns and villages?

Is such a scheme needed there, where the economy is built on servicing the needs of local people? I think not.

Sadly, in South Yorkshire, we have lost an airport due to the lack of political support against an overzealous green agenda. We are losing our city’s businesses due to pedestrianisation, we are losing footfall from terminating buses in one place, instead of allowing people to use stops across the city, and we are losing our market for the same reason—yet we have wonderful new council offices. The staff could bring much business to the town but, sadly, most of them seem to be working from home. Why? Because the elected leaders do so. That is the reason why: they set a poor example. That too is killing footfall.

At one point, Doncaster was a tourist attraction; hundreds of thousands of people used to come to our market. The market is still there, but under a new management company, and with a lack of footfall, tenants are struggling. My home city of Doncaster has so many assets that are not being used to create the business and footfall that they should. There are only three Mansion Houses in the country: in London, York and Doncaster. Why is our Mansion House in Doncaster not open all year round? Why has the Grand Theatre been left to rot? Why do we not have free parking to encourage people to come to town? Why do we not put weekly events on and advertise them to get people into our towns, or open business hubs and careers fairs, to give people a reason to come to our towns? That would get the markets thriving again and in turn get the shops reopening.

Nick Fletcher is the Tory MP for Don Valley. This is an edited version of a recent Parliamentary speech.