BEAR continues to deliver

The Bus Emission Abatement Retrofit Fund (BEAR) is making £8.85 million available in 2019/20. The money is to support the Scottish Government’s commitment to introduce Low Emission Zones into Scotland’s four biggest cities by 2020. The money is to be used to upgrade vehicles to Euro VI. Transport Scotland will be monitoring air quality performance from the buses fitted with the funded technology.

This is the third round of BEAR funding, which has been launched to support micro and small bus operators in particular with the financial costs associated with engine and exhaust retrofitting.

The BEAR scheme offers a provision of 40%-plus grant funding towards the total cost of a combination of accredited retrofit exhaust abatement retrofit technology and ancillary over a five-year period.

The funding bands are:

40% – large operators

50% – medium operators

60% – small operators

• Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity made the announcement during the CPT Scotland annual conference in St Andrews (more on this event in next week’s issue).