To wonder what all the fuss is about ULEZ

[Winterday1991]

Hardly anyone is affected, only if you have a very old car. No, you should not be free to pollute the air by driving around in a polluting vehicle and so should have to pay a penalty to do so.

It annoys me as everyone agrees we need to tackle climate change, but no one wants the hit on their life/ change their lifestyles.

I agree with Ulez. I live in central London and the air quality is terrible. I wasn’t surprised to read about the number of children who have asthma and breathing problems as a consequence. I don’t smoke or have breathing difficulties but sometimes when I open the windows/balcony doors or am out walking you can literally feel it on your chest. During lock down the air was so much cleaner- you could feel it.

I do think many people are just simply selfish - they don’t care that their cars are causing so much pollution : just want to make as much money as they can and don’t care about the consequences for others: it’s very sad.

The op will never win on Mumsnet - a lot are married to the very tradesmen who drive into London each day, polluting the air and charging rip off prices.

Huge numbers are affected! Out of my staff carpark all but two of us have had to get new cars and none of our cars were “old”. Mine was 4 years old and due to its very low emissions I had low tax of a little over £30 per annum. I had to change cars and my new “compliant” vehicle has higher emissions and tax of over £400 per annum.

There IS a bus stop outside my house but the 15-20 minute drive to work needs three buses and nearly two hours!

My neighbours son has had to sell his work van and can’t afford another so has had to take a lower paid job which doesn’t need a van (he was a mobile mechanic).

The ULEZ that the Mayor of London is forcing on people around here is NOTHING to with air quality, it’s about money and that’s why so many outer London Councils are taking it to court. 90% of my friends and neighbours have had to replace perfectly good vehicles - how can that be good for the environment?

It’s a cash grab nothing more. If Khan cared about the affects of pollution why did he force through the Silvertown tunnel?

I do think many people are just simply selfish - they don’t care that their cars are causing so much pollution : just want to make as much money as they can and don’t care about the consequences for others: it’s very sad.

The op will never win on Mumsnet - a lot are married to the very tradesmen who drive into London each day, polluting the air and charging rip off prices.

I'm going to assume that people who think like you never order online delivery of food, clothes or furniture, but buy only what you can carry home yourself? And that you always hire a tradesperson who is local to you and travels on foot, bike or public transport? That you would never attend a theatre production or concert which has involved equipment being brought from outside the city? That you'd not go to a pub or restaurant that has food and drink delivered from outside London? Yes?

It isn't t a money making scheme if people change how they travel, cyclists don't get charged or public transport users. It is possible that the scheme will nudge some people to change their wsy of life, not all but some.

This is such a valid point, few cars are made in the UK now, but you have all that mining for metal, for lithium for batteries, aside from the actual production process. There is nothing wrong with the car, we'd planned it'd take us to near giving up licence age! We are not far outside of ULEZ but our car is 2012. We don't do many miles per year at all - it's low mileage, although we sometimes tow with it. We almost never go into London. There isn't an electric car that can do the towing, nor a hybrid that is ULEZ compliant. Aside from which we really cannot justify spending tens of thousands on a new car for so few miles per year

I do try to shop local but obviously it’s not always easy to control eg how on earth would I know where restaurants buy all their products from. That doesn’t mean that I can’t care when things are clearly not working. Do I think we should all try to make things a bit better for others if we can ? Yes I do (and especially when it’s health related) but I realise others don’t feel the same .

The air quality in parts of London is terrible and action needs to be taken. I don’t know if Ulez is the answer but something has to be done. If people are knowingly driving cars that are particularly bad / pollute the air more than others and could do something about it then yes I think they should. Obviously some won’t be able to afford to act (and they should receive help) but there are many who could take action but choose not to.

From what I see, here and elsewhere, very few people outside the affected area even know about the Scottish LEZs. It will be tourists/business travellers who get caught-out first, I bet.

I hadn't even thought of the impact on tourists and business travellers, that's a really good point. If people don't notice straight away that could be a hell of a fine they build up over a few days.

Tbh when the LEZs were first mentioned I really didn't pay much attention at all (other than checking if our car was affected) because I had (wrongly) assumed that they would do it the same way as London where you could do a small prepayment on a day if you did have to go there.

Hotcuppatea, that's assuming everyone will buy a new car, I thought cities were moving away from private car ownership snd towards more car share schemes

@tarkan I can imagine someone driving into Edinburgh/Glasgow centre, seeing the sign, and thinking, "No problem, I'll hop on the website and pay later" only to be hit be an enormous fine.

I can't imagine many tourists drive into London

One wonders how much of London's poor air quality is due to planes overhead?

I do what I can, including a postgrad degree in environmental energy use so as to understand better how to make such choices, yes. It's very difficult for most of us to make enough changes, as it requires research, time, energy and money, so it does require legislation and structural change.@

Yep I can definitely see a lot of that happening. I can't be the only one who assumed it would be like London in that respect and if anyone travels up from down that way it'll be a shock if they're not expecting it.

Yes. During lockdown my asthma disappeared completely, for the first and only time in my life I could breathe and even took up running. I can't run any more and my wheezing is back.

The outer London ULEZ is being imposed by the LABOUR Mayor of London and the Tory councils are opposing it!

thats why I think the op is a Tory troll whipping up people to be angry about it.
we’ve got
”it’s no big deal”
”tradesman are all tax evaders ripping people off”
”working class should know their place”

This is just not true. Air quality is terrible and breached WHO safety limits in all areas of London, including the leafy outer suburbs.

MIL lives very close to the border between London, Surrey and Kent, on a ridge of hills that overlooks the High Weald. There's a secondary school at the end of her road, which adjoins open countryside.

That school did air quality monitoring a few years ago. The results were better than in my small town in the South Downs national park, surrounded by at least 7 miles of open countryside on every side and only a few miles inland.

I think some people don't realise how suddenly London stops being built up when you get to the edges.

They aren’t opposing it that hard given it was boris’s idea

Ariela, the biggest cause of air pollution is road transport

In london

Bit confused here. If you live in central London then surely you have had an ULEZ for ages. If the air quality is still bad then it isn't working is it?

Mines a 2010 plate and is exempt from the charge. Seems to be mostly diesel vehicles and we've all known for years that they're attempting to phase them out where possible

I agree with Ulez. I live in central London and the air quality is terrible

Er, this doesn't make sense!

Yes but for many more years before that, they told us diesel was the way to go.