A fundamental redesign of town centres will be vital to winning the battle against pollution and poor air quality, Scotland’s Transport Secretary has said.

Michael Matheson’s comments come as Glasgow prepares for the introduction of Scotland’s first low emission zone (LEZ) in a bid to ensure a cleaner environment.

The scheme aims to ban high-polluting vehicles from Scotland’s city centres within the next few years.

It will initially apply only to buses before private cars are brought under strict regulations by the end of 2022.

Mr Matheson said: “There is a need for us to fundamentally repurpose the way our town centres are operating.

“Some of the work being taken forward in Glasgow is not just about improving air quality, it’s also about looking at how we can introduce greater bus prioritisation.”

National proposals will see LEZs put in place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen city centres by 2020.

It means all buses will need to be compliant with zone restrictions by the cut-off date.

Local bus operators in Glasgow will be the first to be affected by phased curbs when the LEZ starts in the city on December 31 this year.

When the zone is fully-implemented in December 2022, all vehicles entering the zone will be required to meet specific exhaust emission standards. This has meant bus firms have had to purchase more low emission buses to meet the deadline.

Andrew Jarvis, managing director of FirstGlasgow, said: “We’ve been buying this type of bus since 2015.

“We’ve got these running around Glasgow already and have done since 2015.

“But we have just bought 75 more and have ordered another 75 vehicles for next year as well.

“We have to keep going at a fairly similar pace to achieve LEZ compliance 100 per cent by the end of 2022.”

Anna Richardson, city convener for sustainability and carbon reduction at Glasgow City Council, said: “The Low Emission Zone was a manifesto commitment that we stood on for election in 2017 and within six months we’ve announced that the LEZ will be coming in by the end of 2018 and actually that’s really fast progress.

“Obviously you need to have a lead-in time to enable all the different vehicles to adapt.

“But even that is a fairly swift implementation of a policy that’s the first in Scotland and bearing in mind we are doing this before the Transport bill has been re-enacted so we have been leading the way for all of Scotland not just the city of Glasgow.”

Mr Matheson added: “The important thing we are trying to achieve here is to drive up the quality of air within our town centres.

“That’s why I’ve identified our four major cities as being a priority to start this process.

“The primary purpose behind it is to deal with issues of air quality because we know that’s particular problem within the town centres.”