ULEZ rant

[CapturedLeprechaun]

I live outside the ULEZ zone, but work as a social worker in a london Borough that falls inside the new expansion zone.

My car is not ULEZ compliant (2006 plate diesel) but runs perfectly fine. I use my car for work purposes for visits to homes and schools, and can claim back 45p per mile on expenses.

My borough has said they will not be allowing ULEZ charges to be claimed on expenses, but will instead provide a bus pass for those that need it. I have worked out the journey time for an average week, and I'll spend approx 6+ hours more a week making my visits by bus than I would by car.

It's so frustrating- that's basically almost a whole day extra a week I'll "lose" in working hours sitting on a bus, yet I'll have the same amount of work to get through. It just seems so shortsighted, and I'm so annoyed. I explained this to HR, and said that if they paid the ULEZ charge for one or two days a week, I could do all my weekly visits on those days and wouldn't lose any working hours sitting idly on a bus, and it makes more financial sense to the council than to have a social worker being unproductive for 6+ hours a week. They're not budging.

So bloody frustrating.

I'm all for cleaner air, but not by making the population pay for it with their time and money.

A lot more should have been invested in the scrappage scheme.

I'm considering an electric bike, used one recently and it was amazing, though I'm not quite confident enough for busy inner London.

Yes, but the Tories (who I don't support BTW) introduced it with a reasonable run-in time and with a more generous offer to those whose cars were affected. Khan has tried to rush this through and get it done on the cheap and, what's more, in Outer London, an area whose boroughs are notoriously hostile to the Mayor (and before him to the GLC).

It's a good scheme and I agree with it but the way it's been handled is appaling. Labour may well get a hiding at the next mayoral election and they will only have themselves to blame.

There are parts of Croydon that aren't in the actual zone though. You can still be in a London Borough and not in the zone. I could park my car a 5 minute walk away and be in Croydon but not in the ULEZ.

The ULEZ applies to all London boroughs. There are some quirks like the A3 to allow people to turnaround but the Borough of Croydon is in the ULEZ

Downe for example. Biggin Hill doesn't have a train station either.

I'm well aware of where the zone is. I live here! I can see exactly which bits of the Borough aren't in ULEZ.

To buy a new reliable Ulez compliant car will cost us at least 30k. We have a perfectly good car which we only use twice a week. Being a carer I tried the bus this week to avoid the charges. Crowded and noisy, probably picking up people’s viruses. God forbid there’s a new pandemic.

Which bits?

What features do you need in a car that mean it will cost £30k?

I think there is a little bit that's not in ulez on the a23 because there is nowhere for the lorries to turn. So it starts on the exits from purley cross rather than at the actual boundary.

I doubt it. ULEZ is extremely popular with everyone I know IRL. The next election is in 2025 by which time everyone will have got used to it and OP’s car will have long since died

Yes. Weird isn't it that people don't see this, or choose to ignore it.

Why do people keep voting for that arsehole?

Loads of used cars are ULEZ compliant, I sold my mum's really old 55 plate petrol Toyota Yaris which was compliant. You don't have to buy a brand new car.

Certainly Birmingham and Bristol areas only cover a very small section of the actual city centre. The London ULEZ is like applying Birmingham's to the whole of the West Midlands conurbation!

There are certainly small parts of the borough of Croydon that are outside the ULEZ zone. For example, a long stretch of a-road in my town on the edge of Croydon is exempt, despite being wholly within the borough. I'm not sure why people who don't live in these areas insist that they are right, and that the people who actually live in the area are wrong 🤷‍♀️

And yes, this expansion is very different to all the other clean air zones, which afaik only apply to the city centres, not right out to the furthest suburbs and semi-rural areas.

I have a sixteen year-old Micra which is compliant. £30,000 seems a ridiculous amount. My husband bought a huge Saab estate last year for a couple of grand (2009 plate)and it's also compliant.

"Why do people keep voting for that arsehole?"

Have you seen the alternatives?

London is one of the few capital cities in the world that isn't heavily government subsidised. It's funding comes mostly from fares which is why they were screwed during the Pandemic. Sadiq had to go cap in hand to Johnson, hence the conditions attached. TFL has to make savings of £300 million. How do you suggest they do that without massively increasing fares or cutting services?
They may not have specified expanding the ULEZ but there aren't many other options.

"Throughout this process, the government has maintained that these support packages must be fair to taxpayers across the UK and on the condition that action is taken to put TfL on the path to long-term financial sustainability. As part of today’s settlement, the Mayor has agreed to further measures that will help ensure that.”
Within the funding period to 11 December, the Department for Transport (DfT) says the Mayor of London has agreed to deliver £300 million of savings or new income sources in 2021 to 2022, identify new or increased sources of revenue for TfL of between £0.5 billion to £1 billion each year from 2023, and prepare a plan to accelerate TfL’s existing modernisation programme of £730 million by April 2023."

So it's not about the environment at all then, but in fact a money making exercise, taxing the poorest and most vulnerable to prop up TFL.

So like the A3 in Kingston borough as I said above. It doesn’t mean the whole of Kingston isn’t in the ULEZ zone and the implication you can be in a London borough but outside the zone is likely to create even more confusion. There are some limited A roads which are excluded to allow people to turn around and avoid the zone.

It is about air standards. If it were about raising revenue the congestion charge would have been expanded.

Upthread someone says their diesel isn’t compliant and has really low emissions and pays £30 VED. VED is based on CO2 emissions.
Its been well known for many years that diesels kick out horrible amounts of NOx which is known to damage people’s health. Maybe the alternative to ULEZ is to increase VED nationally to compensate for the damage NOx does?

Hitting people in their pockets changes their behaviour. Tobacco taxes have driven down smoking rates to reduce harmful health effects. The sugar tax was going to do the same. Minimum alcohol pricing does the same.

‘Taxing’ dirty cars with the ULEZ is designed to push people to buy cleaner cars and change how they use their cars because the cost of keeping them outweighs the cost of changing them. There are thousands of ULEZ compliant cars on Autotrader which cost less than £2k available on the scrappage scheme.

Yes, I'm underarms that, but PPs were saying it was impossible to live within a London Borough but not be within the ULEZ zone - so I was just making the point that this is not necessarily the case.

And, if it is all about air quality then I don't see why people should have the option to drive a few miles within the zone on an exempt road, just so that they have a chance to turn around and not pay.

Because surely that is saying that actually the air quality doesn't matter for the people unfortunate to be living along the exempt road

But it's ok to go and take non compliant cars through London, as long as you can afford the £12.50.

Doesn't strike me that they are that serious about 'air pollution' at all. If they were concerned about human health, they certainly wouldn't be encouraging more people down into the tube would they. 🤔

There is also the small, but meaningful consideration of the environmental cost of destroying cars before their time is up, and manufacturing new 'compliant' cars which is not good for environment / air pollution. But the cost to other people / countries of the can't be seen from London can it.

There isn't thousands of suitable ulez compliant cars available for less than 2k btw.

Because surely that is saying that actually the air quality doesn't matter for the people unfortunate to be living along the exempt road

It seems to be the case yes.

There are some residential bits near me that are in LB Croydon, but for some obscure reason not covered by ULEZ.

Spare a thought for the anomaly that is North Ockendon. Outside the M25 and lots of fields and golf courses. Not really full of trains, tubes and buses that some seem to think 'London' consists of.