AN anonymous donor has pledged £100,000 to the Glasgow LEZ fightback fund.
The fund’s website (www.lezfightbackfund.co.uk) registered an anonymous payment of £40,000 at 1.40pm today but the fund’s organiser, Glasgow businessman William Paton. has been contacted and told that a further £60,000 is in the pipeline when needed.
Mr Paton said: “This campaign will cost hundreds of thousands in legal fees and this hugely generous donation will go a long way to help us provide the legal, media and political opposition in our fight with the duplicitous Glasgow City Council.
“We cannot believe the lies and false statistics that are being bandied about by council officers and we know that they know that their figures are wildly out of date and are misleading the motorists and citizens of Glasgow. How long do Cllr Susan Aitken and Cllr Angus Millar think they can get away with this massive con?”
Glasgow became the first city to enforce the zone with three other Scottish LEZ schemes set to follow next year. Dundee’s zone will be enforced from 30 May 2024, and similar schemes in the centre of Aberdeen and Edinburgh from 1 June 2024. The scheme is far stricter than London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ), both of which have daily charges for drivers who enter in non-compliant vehicles.
Paton has now been given the green light from judge Lady Poole to start a legal challenge against the scheme. A procedural hearing for the case has been scheduled for 8 September and a judicial review is set to take place on 17 October.
Paton, who runs a 60-year-old local business Patons Accident Repair Centre in Glasgow’s Townhead, says the scheme is hitting local businesses despite the LEZ being ‘redundant’.
