Londoner? ULEZ expansion - wrong time?

[GrubzUp]

I like Sadiq Khan, in general I applaud green initiatives.

However it's been announced today that the original inner London low emission zone is to be expanded into outer London - meaning that if you have an older, more polluting vehicle it will cost you £12.50 every time you drive it anywhere in London (inside the M25 I think).

I live in outer London. There are a LOT of older, non ULEZ compliant vehicles on the road round here. At the moment, people don't need to be compliant for local trips, because unless they're heading inside the North / South Circular Rd, they are fine in their older cars.

I look out in the street and see my neighbours' cars: the people who tend to drive older vehicles are the young, the old, the disabled and the poor.

AIBU to say that hitting them with a big new tax for driving anywhere in the middle of a cost of living crisis is the WRONG time? If they can't afford a newer model they certainly can't afford to pay £12 every time they take it off the drive. I feel bad for these people. How are they going to afford it?

Note that public transport here is not what it is in inner London, you can't just "jump on the tube".

It’s all based on a coroner’s finding in one tragic case, but numpties like Kahn just swallow all this stuff because they think it makes them look good.

🙄🙄🙄🙄

Let me guess, climate change is a hoax too?

I think that the "this will penalise the poor!" narrative is very iffy. The poorest are most likely to live on heavily polluted roads, and least likely to own cars, even in Outer London.

The people who will struggle most with this policy and should be helped if possible, are the small business people running diesel vans.

@Yolanda524 you’re routinely allowed to start shifts half an hour late as an NHS nurse?

Completely agree! We are disadvantaged in south London for public transport. Even recently they were trying to scrap a whole load of bus services. Thankfully they're not going ahead with those!

Maybe target the aviation industry for their pollution from Heathrow & Gatwick

I think that the "this will penalise the poor!" narrative is very iffy. The poorest are most likely to live on heavily polluted roads, and least likely to own cars, even in Outer London.

Exactly.

I bought a second hand car from CarGiant in 2015. It's not ULEZ compliant: that wasn't even a thing 7 years ago. When I occasionally need to enter the ULEZ by car I pay the charge (or use a taxi).

I commute by train but I'm thinking if I have to fork out for a ULEZ compliant car I might as well drive to work!

The thing I find slightly bonkers about the whole policy is it takes no account of how much you drive, just what you drive. I probably only do about 1,500 miles a year. How can I possibly be polluting more than someone driving a large car or van every day? Congestion matters too.

We chose to take advantage of the scrappage scheme that meant that we got £2000 for our 20 year old car

Yet our near 70 year old car seems to be exempt.

Not this level of expansion. The main GLA opposition to it is the Tories

Reason people voted for Khan, despite his many failings? The other candidates were even worse.

If you want to drive everywhere, move to the countryside. Cities can't support this many drivers.

I’d love it if they did this. At the moment we suffer all the noise and pollution, yet all the profits go offshore, so we see very little tax take on return.

It’s not NHS it’s in a hospice and they are so short of nurses, I work as bank nurse and they are desperate to have anyone fill the shifts, so yes they routinely let me start half an hour late. But I imagine given that I already pay for Afterschool club adding on the ulez charge and that I only get paid just over the minimum wage I don’t think working will actually be worth it now. I definitely can’t afford a new (used) car.

Sorry I was replying to backyardbackfire.

I often think that it would help enormously with traffic pollution and congestion if we had school buses for primary kids. I'm sure a huge fraction of cars in outer London are taking kids to school and most of the rest are builders' vans (should there be a scrappage scheme for the latter?)

It's not only rich people who drive. Don't be stupid.
The richest roads round here are the LTNs.
Public transport has been shafted. It's taking 3 times as long to get anywhere on a bus because all the main arteries of our city are now jammed!
Not everyone can ride a bike or scooter ffs! You don't need to be disabled to not want to ride a bike.
All the main roads here are subject to idling engines for an extended period of time now. Guess who lives in the flats above the shops?! Not the middle classes, that's for sure!
It's INSANE and it IS affecting less well off people more.

E scooters are illegal to use on the roads and pavements. Ppl do it but its not legal

I think it is if you use a hire one?

Isn't four buses an hour enough?

The car that I learnt to drive in in 2002 is compliant. The emissions standards are really, really not onerous, it's not the case that anyone with a car is being driven off the roads.

Although I agree khan is a terrible mayor I am not sure it’ll have much impact. My 11 year old car is compliant as its petrol. I think the main issue is diesel cars. I drive into a Ulez area regularly and the traffic is just as bad as it’s always been!

My last car was 20 years old and compliant. We live just on the edge of the current ulez zone

Just to be clear, you can only claim up to £2k scrappage against your non-compliant car if you're on benefits.

How will these low income people then be able to find the other £4k-10k they need to buy a complaint vehicle? Secondhand car prices are through the roof at the moment and that's only going to get worse in London.

It's a huge tax on the poor when they can least afford it.

It’s all London Boroughs being included, not everywhere within the M25.

But where I live in South London used to be part of Kent, we aren't considered the city, we are greater london. That isn't he city to me! We are suburbs that got pulled into being part of London.

And now we are considered a lomond Borough then serious questions have to be asked as to why they refuse to invest in a better tube and bus serve south of the river.

Its one thing to have these environmental visions but invest in provide better public transport so when you take from one hand ur giving from another. Just making peoples lives harder.

People would be more accepting of this chnage if they had spent money building more public transport for us.

This has been planned for years. I got my dad to change their car last year, he knew nothing about it and I had to tell him it was coming and their car wasnt ULEZ compliant, their new one is