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.

Are you crazy they earn an absolute fortune!

We have two big cars, I live rurally and have 3 children and 2 giant dogs, a tiny city car wouldn’t cut it. One is 2011 and the other is 2014. Both are barely worth anything, a few thousand at most.

Say I want to replace my 2011 car with a complaint one, would that be possible with the £2k mines worth. I very much doubt it! With the cost of living we couldn’t afford finance either. The cars are still being driven, just in a different place so it seems completely pointless!!

@Winterday1991

do some research before you come on here with your goady posts

They are really not.

Thanks to the rise in interest rates they are finding that they aren't getting people doing extensions etc and just doing repair work.

This means instead of getting jobs that depending on trade take anything from one day to a couple of weeks, they are getting jobs that take one hour to a couple of days.

because it's not about CO2 emissions, it's about particulates in the air that affect peoples breathing. Even relatively new diesel cars fail the particulate threshold so they are banned. Petrol cars (even quite old ones) are still better on particulates than a much newer diesel car. It's about the air quality.

This totally agree.

Then throw in the multi story carparks not designed to take the weight of electric cars that will need replacing. That's not exactly carbon free.

Electric cars aren't the be all and end all big picture.

Tell that to my builder husband who from Aug has to lease or buy a new van (which we can’t afford ) or pay £12.50 a day to leave our road. He cannot add that cost onto the client as it’s expensive enough to hire tradesmen as it is. Of course we all want cleaner air but cleaner air no good to us when he can’t work without a van. I’d rather keep our home than live outside in the cleaner less polluted air.

Buses outside of central London are useless, few and far between so that doesn't really help to have a bus pass does it? ULEZ is not just in central London....

I feel like there needs to be some scrappage scheme to support those with older cars and some decent recycling of those wasted cars.

It does seem to impact poor people more

But we do need cleaner air so something has to happen

I find it hard to believe that a builder can't afford £12.50 a day.

That's not actually true.

It depends on where you live in London including outer London how good public transport is.

Don't worry he will just add it on to your fee like parking charges.

Oh but he can't get the money back if he subcontracts for a larger firm.

We live in Greater London, there are tons of buses within 10 minute walk of our house.

One oddity to add: it also applies to motorbikes which is odd when they take up little space, and don't get stuck in traffic.

It's not odd at all. If they are polluting then they are polluting, regardless of size and time spent on the road. I live in the new zone, but less than a 2 minute drive from the edge. I'd still have to pay the fee regardless of the short time I'd spent on the road. Theoretically I could park my car a 10 minute stroll away and not pay. I'm sure the local residents would be pissed off. I've had to buy a new car instead, despite my old one having many more years of life in it.

It's not actually pointless - it's about improving the air quality in cities which have a lot of traffic and therefore are sensitive to the particulate emissions of older diesel cars. If your non-ULEZ compliant car is driven in a less built up area than inside the M25 then it is less harmful.

Spoiler alert: not all areas of Greater London are the same.

It’s not just tradesman it’s every small business, charity and minibus.
the cost to change vans is huge due to the microchip issue meaning supply is already limited.

there’s actually not enough vans for sale to replace the non ulez compliant ones. That’s before you look for specifics like high tops, panel vans etc.
and the co2 saving is often negligible.

the amount of vehicles affected is higher than the mayors office, the mayor won’t tell anyone where he got that figure from.

the scrappage scheme is only for people within the zone so if you live slightly out of it you aren’t eligible.
so live a mile from the zone, yet use all the amenities of it (kids in school there) your affected with no support. Which means local businesses will suffer as people will drive to a different business instead of paying £12.50

its also in outer london where public transport is also not always so good and can be disjointed. Things like having to get a bus in to a central point to get one out, to go a short distance. That’s before you look at shift work or multi stop jobs.

I agree with the principle of the ULEZ but think the implementation should have been better thought through, given the impact on individuals who have a non-compliant car. A longer lead in time, more comprehensive scrappage scheme / incentives.

We have had to replace our car but we were close to doing so anyway and could afford it - plenty of people not in that position.

But I also think opponents are whipping up a lot of general antagonism amongst people who aren’t going to be impacted. In practice it makes no difference at all to most people, other than benefiting from cleaner air.

it's about improving the air quality in cities which have a lot of traffic

Odd that they've stopped it right on the edge on one of the busiest and regularly congested stretches of road in my area and included the quiet side roads.

A fortune? You are paying them before tax remember. Tax comes off, petrol cost comes off. I’m married to a builder- trust me, no fortune is left in our bank at the end of the month. Now he’s to add £12.50 a day to come off or the cost of a new van.

My car is 18 years old and ulez compliant. I keep checking because no one believes me.

Not sure about the other areas for expansion but the Borough of Bromley is hardly 'high density'!!!

I do.

😀

Mine is 13 and isn't 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's £12 a day. Over 4 clients, that's £3 each per job. They just put their prices up slightly.