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".

Why?

It does nothing but misplace the traffic.

Chardonnay, I would have thought it was the opposite of a rat run, what with all those ltns.

LTNs only push the traffic to other streets.

LTN's create rat runs, they don't solve the problem.

How does a charge for non compliant vehicles, I’m assuming you mean, displace traffic?
If yours argument is correct and everyone with a non compliment vehicle can’t afford a new one then there will be less cars. Builder’s vans will probably be the first to reduce as they are driven less due to the cost. People aren’t going to suddenly start driving their car out of london as that isn’t where they live or work so where does displacement come into it?

Chardonnay, oh I see, you're talking about the main roads as being rat runs, so not all of the city then?

I'd agree with it in principle except for the fact that the London borough I live in has the M25 along the western border (and we're a LONG borough, so it's miles of it), plus the A40 & M4 cutting across it, Heathrow Airport on the southern border as well as Northolt (which has private flights coming in and out as well as RAF flights)

I honestly don't think reducing the number of car journeys made by residents is going to make the slightest difference overall when you consider how much air pollution is due to all the factors I've mentioned above.

It's about generating revenue, that's all.....

YANBU OP

The most deprived areas of the world will seem like Nirvana by the time the green lunacy has managed to destroy the western world

No car, no fuel, no electricity, no food. What else are we going to be forced to go without for the sake of 'climate change'?

This is a £110m scrappage scheme...
aimed at saving 27,000 tonnes of CO2.

Sadiq plans to contribute £2k or £5k to the purchase of a new car. £110m divided by £5k gives us 22,000 new cars.

The manufacturer of...

22,000 new small cars like a Citroen C1...
will produce 132,000 tons of C02.
22,000 new medium cars like a Mondeo...
will produce 374,000 tons of C02.
22,000 new large hybrid cars like Skoda Kodiaq...
will produce 777,000 tons of C02.

Brilliant scheme. Thumbs up for the environment.

No, it won't.

Because public transport suffers from lack of investment. Fares were frozen for years. Building projects everywhere pop up like mushrooms. Construction companies pick up the cost for ULEZ and pass it on to later.

The horse , why does no car equate no food?

The horse , why does no car equate no food?

The 'green agenda' is pushing against the use of fertilisers in parts of the world (e.g. Netherlands) which will result in farmers going out of business, food price increases and shortages

The demonisation of meat production

Different issues created through the same madness

Soon we will be unable to travel beyond the distance we can reach on foot, and we will be unable to go very far due to severe undernourishment

This needs to stop now, it's gone too far

Because public transport suffers from lack of investment

Also strikes!

It's crappy. I live in Surrey (was Middlesex) but within the M25. My daughter will be driving soon and I've kept my old car for her. It's not ULEZ compliant so she will have to stick to our town and the rest of Surrey and not drive into a London borough to go to some of her friends' houses.

Fortunately we have London buses here so it's not too bad. But the trains don't accept Oyster cards, until you're in a London borough, even though there are other stations outside the M25 that do.

Very frustrating!

I really didn't want to turn this into a Khan bashing thread (yawn). I support the policy overall. It just seems a very cruel time to introduce it, when people are really struggling with huge bills for everything. I wanted Mumsnetters to consider how hard this might be for some.

Absolutely awful.

The most deprived areas of the world will seem like Nirvana by the time the green lunacy has managed to destroy the western world

There is nothing green about Khan's agenda. Greenwash, yes. Money making , yes.

Green and pollution reducing, no.

I appreciate it will be very hard for some.

Not as hard as losing your life, or losing a loved one because of toxic air, though.

People seem to forget that we were told to buy diesel at one point. My dad did when he retired and now he’s stuck with a non ULEZ compliant car that he cannot afford to replace. It’s less Than ten years old. Why should it be scrapped. We are outside the zone but he sometimes has to travel in to watch his grandchildren play sports matches. £12.50 is a lot for someone on a state pension.

Khan just doesn’t give a shit about outer London.
we also didn’t vote for him.
it’s a disgusting plan designs to screw money out of those who can least afford it.
time for an inner London mayor only.
most greater Londoners done want a mayor at all.

I’m in favour. Yes I do live in an inner London borough and I do drive and I voted for Khan - he’s a much better mayor than the previous incumbent who closed police and fire stations, wasted money on vanity projects and spent his afternoons at his pole dancer mistress’ flat when he should have been working.

I'm 0.5 mile from the new border. For us and local residents we work, shop. school and send kids to nursery in the new boundary. For us it would now cost us £12.50 x 2 a day to drop off DC at nursery before work. We don't qualify for any of the scrapage schemes or schemes to help residents get cars ulex compliant because we are not in the new border even though all our amenities are.

For us we are lucky we can afford to change our car ( just) for so many local to us this is going to cause so many problems

Road tax for our diesel vehicle is still only £30 per year. It was definitely a factor in us deciding to get this car over a petrol one.

All non-compliant petrol cars would be a minimum of 16 years old (possible more) as those made after 2006 meet the standards, as did many beforehand. So may well be at end of lifespan anyhow.

Diesel is younger though - as compliance date for them was 2016 - fair few before that date were compliant (manufacturers knew what was coming) but many weren't. And cars that are only about 6 years old are likely to still be going strong

The governmental 'buy diesel' scrappage scheme was in 2009, ending March 2010 (it was also a manufacturing boost, to support the industry during the "credit crunch" downturn). Those vehicles are very likely to be non-compliant, but they are also about 22 years old.

Your DDad may have found an incentive scheme, but it wasn't that one.