The Cleaner Road Transport Vehicles Regulations 2011

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations implement, for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Directive 2009/33/EC (“the Directive”) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23rd April 2009 on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles (OJ No L 120, 15.5.2009, p 5).

Regulation 3(1) specifies the persons to whom the Regulations apply when contracting to purchase or lease motor vehicles. Regulation 3(2) provides that the Regulations do not apply to certain categories of vehicle that are not subject to type approval. Regulations 3(3) and (4) provide that the Regulations do not apply to contracts entered into by a contracting authority or utility which are not subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 or the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2006, or contracts entered into by a private sector operator which would not meet the financial thresholds in those regulations if the operator were a contracting authority or utility. Regulations 3(5) and (6) provide that the Regulations do not apply to contracts entered into under a procurement process which began before the Regulations came into force.

Regulation 4 sets out the obligation imposed on persons to whom the Regulations apply in respect of the purchase or leasing of motor vehicles. Those persons are required to take into account operational lifetime energy and environmental impacts (set out in regulation 4(2)). They may do so by establishing technical specifications in respect of those impacts for the vehicles to be purchased or leased (regulation 4(5)), or by taking account of those impacts in the purchasing or leasing decision (regulation 4(6)). Where those impacts are taken account of in the purchasing or leasing decision, that may be done by way of award criteria (where a procurement procedure is used) or by applying a specified methodology to calculate the operational lifetime costs of the impacts (regulation 4(7)).

Regulation 5 specifies the methodology for the calculation of the operational lifetime costs by way of cross reference to Article 6 of the Directive. By virtue of regulation 2(2), the cross reference will capture future changes to Article 6.

Regulation 6 cross-refers to Part 9 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and Part 9 of the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2006 to ensure compliance with the requirements imposed under the Directive.

An impact assessment of the effect this instrument will have on the costs of the business, voluntary and public sectors has been produced and is available from the Office of Low Emission Vehicles, Department for Transport, Zone 1/33, Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DR or may be accessed via the Department's website at www.dft.gov.uk. A copy has been placed in the library of each House of Parliament.

A Transposition Note is also available and may be accessed as above.

Both the impact assessment and the Transposition Note are annexed to the Explanatory Memorandum which is available alongside the instrument on the National Archives website ( www.legislation.gov.uk).

A copy of Directive 2009/33/EC may be obtained from the Stationery Office or viewed in the Official Journal of the European Union via the EU website at http://eur-lex.europa.eu.