Drivers of almost 700,000 Cars in Greater London could be liable to pay £12.50 daily after the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), automotive services company RAC said on Friday.
The ULEZ is an area in which vehicles that are not compliant with certain emissions standards must pay a daily charge to drive or face fines. Petrol cars first registered before 2006 or diesel cars first registered before September 2015 are generally ULEZ non-compliant and therefore subject to the £12.50 charge.
Among cars registered to addresses in Greater London on Feb. 22, there were 316,009 taxed petrol cars first registered before 2006 and 375,550 taxed diesel cars first registered before Sept. 1, 2015, almost 700,000 in total, according to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) data obtained by the RAC through Freedom of Information requests.
If other types of vehicles are included, the numbers rose to 342,670 petrol vehicles and 508,395 diesel vehicles, more than 851,000 in total, DVLA data held on Feb. 8 show.
Owners of non-compliant vehicles do not have to pay on days they don’t drive the vehicles, and the figures above do not include visitors from nearby counties.
The ULEZ zone, which currently includes the area between London’s North and South Circular Roads, will expand further to cover the entire Greater London area on Aug. 29. TfL and Mayor Sadiq Khan said the expansion is necessary because London’s air quality problem is impacting the health of Londoners.
Nicholas Lyes, RAC head of roads policy, said it should be a priority to clean up London’s air, but “the sheer number of vehicles that don’t meet ULEZ emissions standards in Greater London suggests there will be a massive financial impact on motorists and businesses.”
“We desperately need more co-ordination between the mayor and the government to help small businesses, tradespeople, NHS staff, and carers who have no choice but to drive into the expanded ULEZ for work purposes from outside Greater London. Consideration should also be given to those who work at night when public transport is greatly reduced in the outer boroughs," Lyes said.
The ULEZ expansion came with a £110 million scrappage scheme to offer some compensation for Londoners on some low-income or disability benefits, businesses with up to 10 employees, sole traders, and charities to change their old non-compliant vehicles.
Eligible applicants can be rewarded up to £2,000 for scrapping a car, up to £1,000 for scrapping a motorcycle, or £5,000 to scrap or retrofit vehicles with wheelchair access.
Lyes likened the scheme to “using a plughole to drain an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” arguing it’s “simply not big enough for the scale of the job.”
“Changing to a compliant vehicle at such short notice simply won’t be something many will be able to afford, especially during a cost-of-living crisis and at a time when second-hand car prices are so high,” he said, calling for “more creativity” from the Mayor and his team.
Lyes said Khan should consider introducing “an additional one-year sunset period for certain key workers or a scheme where TfL partners with a leasing company to provide discounted, ULEZ-compliant vehicles to smaller businesses or traders, enabling them to avoid daily charges while still reducing roadside emissions.”
In an email to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The ULEZ is a highly targeted scheme and the latest data from Transport for London shows 90 percent of cars driving in outer London now meet ULEZ standards. This clearly shows people, businesses, and charities understand the impact of air pollution on health and are preparing for the expansion of the ULEZ in August.
“The Mayor expects the number of compliant vehicles to increase even further over the coming months, but he knows there is more to do to ensure every Londoner can breathe cleaner air.”
The controversial ULEZ expansion has been met with criticism and opposition.
A separate analysis by car sales platform Auto Trader in January suggested that there will not be enough low-emission vans available for tradespeople to buy before the expansion.
The councils also argued that the overall consultation process was not properly conducted and there was a failure to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of the plan.
A TfL advertisement promoting the ULEZ expansion is also currently under probe after the Advertising Standards Authority received hundreds of complaints saying the air quality claim in the ad was “misleading.”
