Bradford Council offers huge £10,000 grant to cabbies buying, leasing or running an electric taxi

Bradford Council have upped the stakes in the funding of fully electric taxis by offering a £10,000 grant to cabbies buying, leasing or just running a fully electric wheelchair accessible taxi.

The Bradford Clean Air Zone has been live since September 2022 and is operating to improve air quality in the district by deterring the most polluting vehicles from entering the zone. Air pollution levels in Bradford have been found to be too high with damaging impacts on the health of residents.

The Bradford taxi trade has been extremely proactive in upgrading vehicles to Clean Air Zone standards. Thanks to grants already issued, it is one of the cleanest fleets in the country with 98% of the 4,000 strong licensed taxi and private hire trade meeting the CAZ standard.

Bradford Council will be releasing £4m of funding to provide a grant of up to £10,000 for all of the Bradford licensed trade. This will assist Bradford licensed vehicle proprietors with the purchase, lease or running costs of a fully electric hackney Carriage or Private Hire Vehicle, this is the highest grant of this type in the UK.

The applications process will be live from May 2023 for Bradford licensed vehicle proprietors. The grant will be increased for non-Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles from £6,000 over 2 years to £10,000 over 2 years, which brings it into line with the Hackney Carriage and Wheelchair Accessible Private Hire Vehicle EV grants.

Proprietors who have already upgraded to other compliant vehicle types (such as petrol/electric hybrid) can apply for a top-up grant if they choose to go fully electric.

There are currently 200,000 electric vehicle movements per month in Bradford and these grants will support the Bradford taxi trade to also make the change to electric. Owners of electric vehicles can see savings in fuel costs as well as lower servicing and maintenance costs. These are on top of the driver health benefits of in-vehicle pollution reduction, respiratory health improvements and also a reduction in noise.

Cllr Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council's Executive Member for Healthy People and Places, said: “The taxi trade in Bradford is booming with applications to become a driver at an all-time high. We are pleased to further extend our support to the Bradford taxi trade for the upgrade of their vehicles to fully electric by offering up to £10,000 per vehicle in grant funding to assist proprietors with the running costs of a fully electric Hackney Carriage or Private Hire Vehicle. The funding will be allocated on a first come first served basis.”