IN-DEPTH: ULEZ Will Wipe Out Half a Billion Pounds a Year from London’s Economy: Report

Anti-ULEZ protesters in London on April 15, 2023. Owen Evans/The Epoch Times

The economic impact of the proposed extension of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will wipe out “at least” half a billion pounds from the capital’s economy per year, according to new research.

A new report, commissioned by Fair Fuel UK and written by economic consultancy CEBR, warns that London’s air pollution-cutting scheme that charges motorists by the day to drive will continue to have a significantly negative impact on the city’s economy.

Khan disputed the findings of the report.

Khan announced plans to extend the ULEZ, which imposes a charge on drivers of vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards, to cover the entire city by Aug. 29, 2023.

The expansion has faced fierce opposition from the boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Surrey County Council, which argue that it will disproportionately affect lower-income households and small businesses. In April, the High Court allowed a legal challenge led by rival councils against ULEZ.

On Wednesday, former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers said that the UK government should be given the power to review and overturn the schemes.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan at City Hall as Transport for London (TfL) launch their consultation on expanding the ULEZ London-wide on May 20, 2022. Karis Pearson/PA Media

Impact

CEBR estimated that the negative impact of the existing ULEZ, which covers central London, has a £253 million hit on the city’s economy. The proposed ULEZ expansion will have an additional negative impact of £369 million.

The total proposed ULEZ effect for cars and vans will be £538 million.

CEBR claimed, however, it only estimated the “direct effects.”

“Since the impact of the proposed ULEZ on vans is 4.5 times that of the existing ULEZ and hence essentially on business activity, it is likely that the proposed ULEZ has additional indirect economic effects which we have not considered,” the study said.

Howard Cox, founder of the FairFuel UK campaign, sits for a photograph in London, on April 5, 2023. NTD

Howard Cox, co-founder of pressure group Fair Fuel UK, said: “Mayor Khan’s fixation with an alleged air quality improvement scheme not only unnecessarily fleeces drivers, sole traders, and low-income motorists, it also rips at least half a billion pound out of the capital’s economy per year.

“It is way past time hard-pressed Londoners rid themselves of this dishonest career politician and support a new mayor that will scrap ULEZ for good,” he added.

ULEZ

ULEZ is an area in which vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards must pay a daily charge of £12.50 to drive or face fines. It currently covers 4 million people, or around 44 percent of London’s population.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced the world’s first ULEZ in 2015 when he was London mayor.

Undated photo of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Andrew Matthews/PA Media

The scheme currently covers the areas within London’s North and South Circular roads. It is set to expand to the whole of Greater London from Aug. 29, 2023.

To avoid the ULEZ fee, diesel vehicles, which make up the vast majority of vans—must be Euro 6 standard, which generally covers those registered from 2016.

A delivery van driver or tradesperson entering the zone in an older van every working day will rack up more than £3,100 a year in charges.

Drivers who fail to pay face a £160 penalty each day, which is halved if paid within a fortnight.

According to a recent Freedom of Information request, there are 1,400 cameras used for ULEZ enforcement that can read number plates and check vehicle compliance.

Some have previously questioned why the scheme is being pushed even though a planned ban on new petrol and diesel cars is coming in by 2030 and that by 2027 there’ll be no revenue for ULEZ.

Former MP and political commentator Lembit Opik, who supported the findings of the report, told The Epoch Times that the ban on cars was “literal madness.”

Opik said that “it’s a suicide note for the British economy because the only people who can afford long-range electric vehicles are rich.”

“And how are you going to charge your electric vehicle if you live on the 32nd floor of a tenement building in Brixton?” he added.

The Ultra Low Emission Zone is to expand to the North and South circulars from 2021. Transport for London

‘Political Agenda’

A spokeswoman for the mayor of London told The Epoch Times by email: “This hugely flawed report funded by the fossil fuel industry contains a highly-selective use of data and is full of errors.

“The report completely ignores swathes of important information, including the positive impact to business of the £110 million scrappage scheme and the huge economic benefits of improving Londoners’ health. It also ignores the major benefits to businesses of reducing congestion in London,” she added.

“Around 4,000 Londoners die prematurely each year due to air pollution, children are growing up with stunted lungs, and hundreds of thousands of people in our city are developing life-changing illnesses, such as cancer, lung disease, dementia and asthma,” she said.

An anti-ULEZ protest organised by the Together Declaration in London, on April 15, 2023. Owen Evans/The Epoch Times

In response to the mayor’s statement, Cox told The Epoch Times by email that “FairFuelUK is and has never been funded by the fossil fuel industry.”

“It is so sad that Sadiq Khan continues to lie to get his ego-driven personal political agenda in place,” he said.

“The CEBR report uses his own Transport for London’s data and the ‘deadweight’ cost measurement assumes Transport for London spends the revenues on scrappage schemes etc. We took that into account. This credible independent study suggests little health impact from the ULEZ expansion too. London’s mayor is running scared and knows he will be slaughtered in the 2024 election,” he added.

Toxic Air Claims

A report in March disputed the science behind Khan’s claim that thousands of people will die from toxic air to justify his ULEZ expansion, saying it was “very far from unequivocal.”

The report said that neither the UK Health Security Agency nor the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) found evidence of a link between the air pollution scientific literature and the 4,000 deaths claim.

It also claimed historical data show radical improvements in air quality since the middle of the last century.

The report (pdf), written by researcher Ben Pile, was a collaboration between the Together Declaration and Pile’s campaign group Climate Debate UK.

The Together Declaration, founded by Alan Miller in 2021 in response to COVID-19 measures with the mission to “push back against the rapidly growing infringements on our rights and freedoms,” has increasingly been vocal on policies that restrict motorists and movement.

At the time, Pile told The Epoch Times that “according to this ‘statistical construct,’ 4,000 deaths per year is equivalent to each Londoner seemingly losing 68 hours of life expectancy per year.”

“While that may seem bad, life expectancy in the UK, including London, has been increasing at 73 days per year,” he added.

He said that the costs of the many anti-car policies being introduced across the UK need “to be considered against the alleged, and only trivial and hypothetical, benefits.”

Pile also said that depriving people of mobility “will have serious economic consequences.”

“And the far bigger driver of health outcomes than exposure to air pollution is income. An increase of post-housing cost income of £416 per year is associated with an increased healthy life expectancy of 219 days—a far greater benefit than even the total elimination of air pollution can produce,” he added.

Pile said that the “green agenda risks doing serious harm to people’s health and wealth.”

“Every investigation reveals green policies to be based in bad science such as Khan’s. Yet politicians, academia, and much of the media seem completely uninterested in subjecting any green ideology. Until the UK finds its way back to democracy, the public interest is not going to be served, and a great deal of harm is going to be done in the name of ‘public health’ and ‘saving the planet,'” he added.

London's Ultra Low Emission Zone. PA Graphics

In response at the time, a spokesman for the mayor of London told The Epoch Times by email: “The air quality data used by the mayor comes from globally renowned experts at Imperial College London and is completely robust.

“Imperial College London carried out the most accurate scientific investigation into the awful human cost of air pollution in London, using methods accepted by government and recommended by the government’s own expert advisers [COMEAP],” he said.

He added that “many different scientific studies from renowned universities around the world have shown that air pollution increases the risk of getting lung cancer, heart disease, premature births, new cases of asthma, stunted lungs in children, and an increased chance of early death.”