The West Midlands Partnership
The Low Emission Towns and Cities Partnership is made up of the seven West Midlands local authorities: Birmingham City Council, Coventry City Council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council, Wolverhampton City Council.
The group works together to improve air quality and reduce emissions from road transport. The intention is to do this by promoting the uptake of low emission fuels and technologies, establishing and sharing best practice policies, and developing various tools and resources. The objectives of the programme are to investigate and produce regional strategies designed to improve air quality with a view to meeting national air quality objectives, thereby promoting compliance with EU emission limits and in addition reducing carbon emissions.
Work Programme
Over the past three years the Partnership has secured funding from Defra’s Air Quality Grant scheme in order to develop:
Each work strand is led by a different member of the group Walsall (Low Emissions Strategy), Coventry (Procurement), Dudley (Planning), Birmingham (Low Emissions Zones). A further tranche of funding has been secure to extend the work, this is subject to final plan approval.
Next Steps
Draft Low Emissions Strategy and Best Practice Guidance for both Planning and Procurement are to be launched for consultation at an event to be held at the Council House, Birmingham on the 27th November 2012. Following an 8 week consultation period between December 2012 – January 2013, it is envisaged that that documents will be finalise in late Spring 2013. Work on the LEZs Technical Feasibility Study will be completed by Summer 2013 and the findings will be reported and disseminated to Stakeholders in Autumn 2013.
The National AssessmentThe benefits case for stronger local action.
Low Emission HubAction Database - implementation, impacts and benefits.
Planning GuidanceReducing the transport emissions associated with development.
Low Emission ToolkitQuantify transport emissions for managed fleets and development sites.