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.

This is not about me, this is about people less fortunate than me.

What, people who don't have a car but do have life-limiting illnesses directly caused by air pollution like me?

Sorry to be so selfish but I find my own situation to be quite unfortunate.

@Dibblydoodahdah but it's true, I do live in central London. I'm thinking about that while taking a big puff on my inhaler.

@limitedperiodonly well why were you not bothered about people driving non-compliant cars in central London as long as they paid the charge? Surely with a life limiting illness caused by pollution you would have an issue with that?!

Yes, very liveable - and they did it while keeping most of the city car-friendly too. I'm a Londoner though, and have older friends who are eligible for free public transport. They own the city in a way most of us no longer do. Yes, I'd support free/much cheaper transport and a persuasive rather than a punitive policy on cars.

Sorry, that was too @limitedperiodonly

@Dibblydoodahdah have you noticed my username? I chose it as a dark joke after a bleak diagnosis a while ago but against all odds I am still hanging on. I spoke to a consultant only today. He agrees I am a medical miracle.

Therefore, I'm very bothered about all health matters, since you ask, and I don't feel any sympathy for someone who limits my life by choosing to do stuff and even less - is that possible? - for anyone who says: "Ooh! But I drive a diesel-guzzling 4X4 that's ULEZ-compliant but I feel really sorry for people who aren't as fortunate as me."

Why don't you feel sorry for people like me? Or Ella Kissi-Debrah? Who could look at that face and their heart remain unbroken? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/10/ellas-law-rosamund-kissi-debrah-air-pollution-death-london#:~:text=Ella's%20fame%20is%20tragic%3A%20she,as%20a%20cause%20of%20death.

I'd rather people didn't drive but I can't stop them and realise that a compromise is necessary for them and for me. I'm not the Queen and this is my community, not my realm.

People need to drive in my area if it's essential for their work and I realise that work sometimes benefits me and the people around me. I also want my neighbours to drive if they need or want. Neither would I tell them what kind of vehicles to drive because I'm not a tyrant.

I hire cars when I need them but it's not that often.

We all need and want cars. I accept that.

All I ask is that people drive legal ones - insured, MOTd and in this area and soon to be extended - ULEZ-compliant. If they don't, they can pay the £12.50 a day charge which will hopefully put them off doing it very much and encourage them to switch to a compliant vehicle.

Actually, that's a thing. I wonder if you have a non-ULEZ compliant vehicle within the ULEZ you get charged £12.50 a day whether you move it or not. I suppose I could ask one of my car-owning neighbours but I can't be bothered. I am happy with the rules as I understand them.

Why should I feel sympathy for someone who limits my life or respect the opinion of someone who chooses to feel sympathy for them but not for me?
I realise that will put people in financial hardship and I am sorry for them but have to look out for my own health and the welfare of those who love and depend on me. I don't care on which side you and your ULEZ complying, diesel-guzzling 4X4 come down on.

Except, if they live in central London and have a car they have to pay whether they like it or not. Their only 'choice' would be to move out of central London. Not very realistic is it!?

@limitedperiodonly if you genuinely have a life limiting illness brought on by pollution why on earth are you living in central London? If you were looking after your own welfare you would leave London and any other city.

It doesn’t matter what my car is as long as it’s compliant, which it is. How would the fact that I have a compliant car stop me feeling sympathy for others that don’t and cannot afford them? You seem a bit obsessed about my car by the way, why is that?!!!

You initially made out that you weren’t bothered about people driving non-compliant cars as long as they paid the fee. Why didn’t you raise the health aspect first if that is so important to you?

Also, as you well know, poverty has a very detrimental impact on health. Pushing people further into poverty is not going to help that.

The scrappage scheme is ill thought out. I see that people who get child benefit can now access the scrappage scheme. So a family on a joint income of £99k could get it but a pensioner just above the pension credit amount (£10,500) cannot.

Pensioners are entitled to free public transport across all of London.

I would be happy as a non car owning London tax payer to support cheaper or free public transport - I mean I already contribute to free public transport in London for pensioners, disabled people and under 11s. My taxes also contribute to the ULEZ scrappage scheme despite less than half of people in my borough owning a car.

Sometimes we all have to take a financial hit for tbe greater benefit of the comunity.

Jumpingthruhoops, or just get rid of their car altogether?

Covid has taught us that focusing too sharply on one area of public health may cause others to deteriorate, I think? Introducing policy that increases hardship during a cost of living crisis is no good.

Things need to change at some point when ever that may be, our cities are choked and inefficient

The suburb of London where I live isn't choked and inefficient at all.

So there is absolutely no air pollution where you live?

When I checked random areas of Greater London on Thursday all of them had high air pollution.

I haven't said there is no air pollution. But I absolutely wouldn't describe it as choked.

When I was checking it was high all across Greater London but not choking.

When it gets to choking level - asthmatics and those with lung conditions are told to stay indoors and others are told not to exercise outdoors.

Jenjb, so every where else apart from your suburb is dominated by traffic?

if you genuinely have a life limiting illness brought on by pollution why on earth are you living in central London? If you were looking after your own welfare you would leave London and any other city.

@Dibblydoodahdah there is no better description of your comment than "breathtaking".

I'm not saying that. Of course there is traffic. But someone described it as choked and it absolutely isn't. Like every other town in Britain it's busier at some times than others.

I'm currently on the tube where the air quality is much worse than in my garden. I know where I'd rather be (if it wasn't raining)

It sounds great. I qualify for free public transport next year when I am 60 - fingers crossed, it's not cancelled. It's a brilliant scheme that helps whatever your income. It you are poor, you can get out and about. If you are rich, or middling you can do the same and you won't be clogging up the roads and choking the air with a line of cars.

I read about a US city, I've forgotten which, that has free public transport for the under 22s. Loads of those people are obviously in full time education so it must help families with their budgets. It must help young people stay in education which is good for them but also good for the community because some of them will train for jobs that help others.

It costs a lot of money but I think it is so valuable on many levels - household budgets, health, road safety, journey times for people who need to drive individual cars.

I truly don't understand the level of hostility to it and insistence by the objectors that they only on the side of the little guy.

It reminds me a bit of the Fairs Fare policy of Ken Livingstone when he was leader of the GLC (Greater London Council) in the 1980s. I don't like everything about Ken Livingstone, he has expressed disgraceful antisemitic views, but on the issue of cheap public transport he was spot on and very popular with Londoners. That's why so many of us voted for him to be our Mayor.

Livingstone's popularity and talent as an irritant was the reason Margaret Thatcher's government abolished the GLC. The huge banner constantly updating unemployment statistics and displayed on County Hall across from the Thames to Parliament probably did it too.

There’s an area near me, just on the edge of London in Essex where the bus service ended a while ago. It’s not particularly rural or anything but it’s either a 35 min walk to the nearest tfl bus stop or a 30 min walk to an Essex bus stop, to then connect with a station. They’ll be under 10 min from the ulez boundary, most the nearest services are within the ulez. There’s not even a bus service though

I’m just within the boundary, the traffic flows freely almost all day unless there’s an incident. No regular traffic issues at all

It sounds great. I qualify for free public transport next year when I am 60 - fingers crossed, it's not cancelled.

No way will that happen for the time being, I think you're safe. I love that you can visit free museums and galleries, the parks, Westminster - take a packed lunch and the whole thing is free. London should be like this for all Brits though - it's everyone's capital city and contains such a lot of our heritage. I hate the 'keep off our land' attitude that Londoners are being encourage to adopt.

I thought the free bus pass at 60 was all over england and wales?

Bus but not the Freedom Pass which is a TfL initiative for over-60s in London boroughs that also covers the Tube. It's brilliant and so freeing.

You should have heard my Essex-dwelling, former clippie in the London Blitz mother on the subject. But on second thoughts, probably not.

I got her point but unfortunately despite her heroic efforts in wartime - ding-dinging on the bus when a WWI veteran driver sped through the London docks when the night was bright as day from direct hits - she didn't live in a London borough and for some reason Essex County Council did not want to subsidise train travel for residents like the elderly, the very young and the disabled.

I don't know why they didn't want to do that. apart from utter cheeseparing selfishness. It seemed a sensible and humane idea for people like my mum who never learned to drive and lived on the border of London and crossed into it frequently to give them a discount .

Perhaps one of the councillors or a resident of Essex can explain why they didn't want to do that for a group of vulnerable elderly people on a tight budget who didn't have a car? Surely these people are deserving of sympathy?

My mum lived on the Essex end of the Central Line and always paid her Tube fare out of her pension. But a Freedom Pass would have made it easier. It was possible for Tory Essex County Council and Tory Epping Forest District Council and the constituency MP, the Tory Eleanor Laing, to have arranged that. But they didn't.