Did Uxbridge just vote for Climate Change?

[Tatami]

By 495 votes? The reason for the narrow Tory win appears to be down to a campaign against the Ultra Low Emmission Zone. Cleaner air, doing something positive about Climate Change, helped by access to the best Public transport network in the country? Nah, more of the same please; dirty air and dirty politics. FFS Uxbridge.

Nonsense. People in my area still hate the sodding low traffic neighbourhoods which were implemented during covid.

I live in Uxbridge and did not vote Conservative but the original poster has not idea what they are talking about. I'm sure ULEZ is one of the major reasons as it is not wanted here. My car is compliant but i'm still against the expansion.
What happens to all the scrapped cars?
How many emissions does making a new car create?
How do we dispose of the batteries in these electric cars?
Lots of people who live in this area work at Hillingdon hospital and Heathrow airport doing shift work and need to be able to drive, these are the very people being screwed over.

Many in the outer boroughs are opposed to this extension. My leafy borough has pretty good air, and I would notice it because I've got lung problems, so this is just a cash cow.🙁

ULEZ will be a factor. It has been badly managed and will disproportionately affect poorer people and small business owners.

Also I just bloody wish Labour and the Lib Dems endorse tactical voting. WTF did the Lib Dems put a candidate in Uxbridge. Our first past the post system is just shit

Uxbridge is not basically rural. I could take a direct bus there from my school and I am paid inner London loading!1

Invested in public transport?

The same transport that will waste over 4 million on a name changing project and lets tens of thousand F&F travel free at the expense of the paying passengers?

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/careers/rewarding-you

The truth is that Saddiq Khan is happy to cover the whole of London in concrete but has decided that ULEZ is the best for the air. He could be planting trees and using green columns, but he's not.

He's doing the same to the clean air cause as the Stop The Oil protests with his actions.

Ulez doesn't target emissions to reduce them, just make money from them. If you can afford the daily charge, you can continue to drive whatever car you want

Yes, the virtually rural bit got me. It was a Tory safe seat that the majority margin fell in.

There is an extensive bus service, there are tube lines including Elizabeth line. Easier to navigate on public transport than eg Barnet where bus services are poorer and tube line set up means traveling abroad the borough far harder.

There are some nice green areas? But not rural at all.

Hilarious. Do you think they actually care about gridlocked traffic? I live right on the boundary of the current ulez zone..it's made no difference to me. What has made traffic worse is the stupid fucking plant pots they keep putting down in the middle of the road.

Some of the bus routes above have now been altered but this is not a rural area.

People are not going to vote to be poorer. They already feel stretched.

Climate change is a huge and impending doom. By-election voters know (rightly) that they can’t solve that. So why not protest ULEZ and at least keep some money in their pocket?

As others have mentioned, most people in the area have jobs that don’t revolve around getting a train to Central London to sit at a desk.

A lot of business also relies on nearby South Bucks. I’m not affected by ULEZ but there’s no feasible way for me to get to Uxbridge without driving. It’s either an 18 minute drive or 1 hr 15 on two buses.

I know people who are personally affected by Ulez. Their ability to live day to day. We're not talking luxuries. We're talking people in 10 year old cars they can't upgrade but with no other way to travel to work. It takes phenomenal arrogance to struggle to understand why people might vote against Ulez.

I am in Uxbridge and voted Labour, my car is compliant but I see that ULEZ is an issue for some people.

I think the main issue is that there were something like 17 people standing. Laurence Fox came 4th - that tells you a lot about how some people think in this area.

“Virtually rural”.

Translated “there’s a couple of fields I drive past from the roundabout near McDonalds to reach the M40 ”.

Mid Wales and the Highlands of Scotland be like 🤣😡

Because that's is such short sighted thinking

How do you think they will cope with next round off food inflation / driven by war and fbis years extreme heat in southern Europe?

How will they cope when the gas is turned off and they can't heat their homes ?

There should be joined up thinking and public transport but to be fair climate change is going to cost everyone, and the more we leave it the more it costs

There is a secondary issue of who bears the costs and with the tories in charge it won't be the rich will it

The £12.50 is a deterrant and it does have an impact.

ULEZ isn't going to change anything at all on climate changes, its a policy that guarantees the wealthy's ability to do what they want, when they want, meanwhile everyone else suffers.

We need more joined up thinking and more concern on how people on low wages get to work, do the weekly shop etc etc and for many people, thats via a cheap ish older car, the very vehicles already paying high vehicle emissions duty.

The next thing going to hit the less well off is the move to tighter EPC ratings in 5 years and banning new fossil fuel vehicles in just 7 years time... how will community carers on nr NMW get round that?

There is going to be a huge kick back against these sorts of policies and Labour may well find themselves on the losing side.

“The poorest” don’t own cars, but suffer the worst effects of air pollution.

Have you really thought about this, OP?
It’s all very well and laudable in theory, but in practice ULEZ is disproportionately going to affect the less well off. It’s going to mean £12 every time you take a non compliant vehicle out. I know of a hardworking young gardener with his own business, who absolutely needs his vehicle for all the kit, and is going to have to cough up every single day he works - or spend a considerable amount on a newer vehicle. He has recently complained bitterly about it.

And there will be many more like him - small businesses/tradesmen, and anyone else who does absolutely need their vehicle for work. Another example I can think of is the (usually poorly paid) carers who go from house to house and would almost certainly be hard pushed to make timings if they couldn’t drive - or else would find it impossible.

It is a worrying result because it will galvanise the anti-environmental wing of the Tory party.

However we have to just keep going. A growing majority of people understand that climate change is real and we have to transition from fossil fuels.

It’s ulez.
it’s the tradesman who can’t afford to change his van because

new vans (and cars) were already in short supply due to microchip issue just before covid.
then covid meant the factory fire didn’t get as quickly resolved as it would
so now you have a perfect storm of not enough vans to replace the non ulez ones - that’s before you look at specific needs in the van. E.g panel van / high top etc
you also have the price affect, everyone needs a ulez van so prices have gone up. Their current vans are worth less as no one wants one
the cost to change is massive as a result.

yes there’s a scrap page scheme but it doesn’t touch the sides of the vans. There’s also the people who work or live over the boarder and have to commute through the zone that it’s affected with no support.

uxbridge is a very heavy self employed and small business area.

everyone agrees it should happen, it’s just the perfect storm to make now the worst time financially.

How does the ULEZ mean people will transition away from fossil fuels?

It will force people to buy younger cars with lower emissions and they might be a bit more fuel efficient but there’s no reason they’ll be electric.

How is Uxbridge, Ruislip and Hillingdon virtually rural? They have access 3 tube lines
between them and at least 3 different suburban train lines into central london (off the top of my head) I’ve head a lot of crap about ULEZ but that’s hilarious!

Right, but I used to live 10 mins drive from Uxbridge - it was where I went to do my main shop, if I had to go to Wickes, where my kids did swimming lessons. I live with fields to the left and right of me, and the bus would take nearly an hour to do the journey that was 10 mins in my car.

If Ulez came in, then I would have had to drive 25 mins in the other direction to get to the next supermarket, about 45 to get to the next nearest swimming pool and other big stores in the next nearest town.

When you live semi-rurally, you use the towns as hubs - Uxbridge is a hub town for the rural community around it - who would be caught by ULEZ - no wonder local businesses would have been worried.

Turn ULEZ round... charge people to drive high end cars like Landrover Defenders instead. Will make a lot more money for public transport...