To be fuming with the handling of the ULEZ expansion

[Pizfufffff]

They refused to consider that people not in receipt of benefits may also be struggling with the cost of living. Despite being told again and again. They finally expanded the scrappage scheme to all ONE WEEK before the expansion giving no one enough time to actually apply, scrap and buy a compliant car in time. Oh and on top of that there are train strikes all weekend leaving people in outer London where transport isn't the best anyway unable to get around without paying the charge.

YANBU. It's a shitty scheme that penalises the poor. Outer London has nothing like the same public transport infrastructure as inner London. We rely on rail networks which are subject to endless strikes and cancellations.

DH now can't pick DC up from the station when they come home from uni with heavy bags on the numerous occasions that our branch line is closed (about 50% of all attempted journeys this year have been cancelled or subjected to delays of well over an hour.) I can't do a big shop in our local supermarket. DH can't buy plants and feed at our local garden centre. We can't get to our favourite curry house which is not walking distance or reachable by public transport. The irony is, DH bought the diesel car because it was sold at the time as being more eco than petrol versions.

Right?? My mum was going to get the train to a different supermarket as she doesn't want to pay the £12.50 charge to go to the local one she is still waiting on her application to be accepted, only to find out that the trains are on strike too. I will end up paying the charge for her but what an absolute mess. Im sure many people are in this position, just forced to pay 12.50 a day for the foreseeable future. Our outer London borough is huge and getting around without a car especially for the elderly is difficult and time consuming. Paired with the train strikes, im absolutely fuming.

I actually called the ulez line today to enquire about her application and was told she will have to wait a further ten working days once her car has been scrapped to receive approval that TFL have received the documents. In the meantime they just told me in a very indifferent way "she will just have to pay the charge until then"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64798395.amp there is no safe level of air pollution . This is a good article.

You've got a considerably more generous scrappage scheme than that offered to those affected by the first expansion (equally poor and suddenly beholden to public transport that might not connect the right points, or might not run all hours)

Perhaps you could arrange online shopping deliveries for your DMum until she changes vehicle?

The difference is that transport within inner London is far superior than in outer London. If we had the transport of inner London this would be a non issue for me as I agree with the ulez scheme in principle but the rollout of it is unacceptable in my opinion. This is also why there is such a disparity between support for ulez in inner London Vs outer London. much of outer London is semi rural.

That said, good idea about online deliveries I will definitely do that until she can change her car.

I only know one person who's car wasn't compliant. What percentage of cars on the roads aren't actually compliant?

Great pun!

I don’t know why they don’t “penalise the polluter” and tax people according to how many miles they have driven multiplied by how polluting their vehicle is. So camper van owners, who generally drive only 2-3k miles a year would not be hit as hard as people who drive 13k a year.

I’ve been hearing about the clumsy way it’s been handled on numerous R4 programs lately. Maybe the thinking is that the purpose the extend the ULEZ zone has been in circulation for a long time and that the scraping scheme is just the final push to get the undecided to make up their minds - obviously that doesn’t help the many people that would like to do the right thing but can’t afford to.

You might want to watch this guy 2 videos of air pollution in and around London - he’s a but long winded and tedious for my taste but the last 5 mins of part 2 are worth listening to.

The most polluted parts he saw were on and around the underground stations (at road level) - not outside the ULEZ zone.

Perhaps transport companies carrying freight by road would look harder at using less polluting vehicles or shifting away from roads and on to rail - I just googled that diesel trains will be phased out by 2040 and that 29% of the current fleet are still diesel. The air quality for passengers using the London Underground is terrible.

Really the ways in which we live our lives is going to have to change drastically over the next decade - we’ve all got to accept that. Clean air zones W being introduced all over the UK - check here
https://www.bvrla.co.uk/industry-campaigns/air-quality/clean-air-zones.html

I’ve been reading about devices and modifications that can be made to diesel cars for a while - I’m going to look harder at what there is currently. I suspect that even if I did modify my diesel car that the road tax systems and ULEZ and LEZ systems wouldn’t be sophisticated enough to give me any concession anyway.

Put your car registration number in here and you can find out

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/check-your-vehicle

No idea what the figures are nationally but my 09 plate Peugeot 207 only has 35k miles on it - it’s immaculate - I only do 2-3k miles a year as I worked for myself from home since 2009. I’d have to pay the £12.50 a day. I do slightly more miles in my camper van - 3-4k.

God, I really hate arseholes like Sadiq Khan who own an absolute comparative fortune to the average person, dictating how they spend their income. £87.50 a week for absolutely fuck all in return, for the crime of driving to work and daring to leave your house at the weekend is criminal. It’s the wealthy who pollute.

https://media.rac.co.uk/pressreleases/drivers-of-nearly-700000-cars-in-greater-london-could-be-liable-to-pay-the-ulez-charge-when-the-zone-is-expanded-this-summer-3241731

About 10%, 700,000 cars in Greater London could be liable to pay the ULEZ charge

Sadiq Khan has messed up very badly. Should have explained it well in advance, improved public transport in advance and given plenty of time for people to change their car with a larger grant than a piffling £2,000. Typical politician - talks up policy but hopeless on implementing. The Tory alternative is deeply unattractive though.

The scrappage of non-compliant cars is another environmental disaster waiting to happen. The pollution and waste caused by producing and purchasing shiny, new, compliant vehicles is obscene and is every bit as detrimental to the environment in other ways and other countries.
It's another tax on the poor to benefit the rich, but packaged up to give it green credentials.

Exactly this. On a global scale the best thing that can be done is using up everything until it expires completely. Somewhat ridiculously you can have a classic car and not pay ULEZ for example.

Ultimately we need to use our cars less and how else are we supposed to make this happen?! The pollution caused by all vehicles is a public health concern (ULEZ was never about climate change). As a mum of three young children, it is scary to think about how much toxic air my kids might be breathing in. I'm very sorry to those driving old cars and having to pay the charge, but if it means we are incentivised to use our cars less then we have to try? That poor girl in Streatham was proven to have died from bad air quality - i remember that news breaking and thinking how shocking it was as my son was born around then.

From my understanding, ULEZ has expanded to all boroughs of London? It hasn't gone further out has it? It can't have gone beyond London as it wouldn't be within Sadiq's remit (he's London Mayor!) Apparently 9 out of 10 households in London have compliant cars anyway so most of us are ok.

I really don't understand why so many ppl are against ULEZ when it was always about public health. Is it just Labour bashing because we have an election looming? From what i remember, it was Boris' idea back when he was Mayor! Whatever your politics, we need to use our cars less.

The irony is, DH bought the diesel car because it was sold at the time as being more eco than petrol versions.

So did millions of people. Is any government going to stand up and accept responsibility for lying (at worst) or officially misleading (at best) all of these people? I think we know the answer to that one.

How can you possibly encourage somebody to do something and then penalise them further down the line for trusting you?

I only know one person who's car wasn't compliant. What percentage of cars on the roads aren't actually compliant?

Maybe you live in a well-off area, but there are many, many people who do have older, non-compliant cars. Not because they are too mean, stupid or lazy to 'just get a new one', but because they simply cannot afford to do so.

Think about it: if only a tiny percentage of cars were non-compliant, why would they go to all of this effort and expense to combat a negligible amount of pollution?

Also, the compliance criteria are only going to get stricter and stricter. Before long, any non-electric car will be non-compliant, so, for the people who are now asking "Who is it who has a non-compliant car anyway?", it will soon be them.

And once virtually all cars are electric, and so there's very little money in the scheme for them, with hardly anybody having non-compliant cars to be paying them for it, they've got it all planned to be using all of these same cameras and charging people by the mile.

As with the "you should all buy diesels" lie/scandal, governments of all colours will charge you heavily as 'punishment' to supposedly discourage you from doing something, but once most people have been discouraged and stop doing it, they move the goalposts to make sure they still keep getting in all of the money anyway.

It was Boris' idea to have ULEZ in inner London where there is plenty of public transport including late trains and night buses.

ULEZ in outer London is not about air quality. It will have negligible impact.

This is all about olling out a camera network for future road pricing that people in outer London cannot avoid because the public transport is dismal.

And if you want to make it political, I would suggest that the Labour mayor isn't too fussed about this as his votes are predominantly in inner rather than London.

Yep appreciate this, and thinking about it, i guess it would predominantly affect older ppl who use their cars for shorter journeys. And I agree we need to improve public transport massively.

I'm not trying to be political at all - i actually do think the levels of air pollution are exceeding what they should be and it makes me sad when ppl think this is ok.

I'm sorry for this - i remember when i wanted a diesel car! I do drive a car but truth is i rarely drive it as I'm rubbish at driving and parking it! I prefer to use public transport whenever i can (trust me I know it's not the easy option) though the easiest option is for me to drive. But I also don't want to add to the smog and toxic gases which we'll prob learn more about in years to come when we're riddled with health issues!

I live right on the border of the ulez. On the wrong side unfortunately. My car is luckily compliant, but if it wasn't I would be stuck. 2 bus routes which both stop before midnight. A tube which has last trains running into London before midnight. No night buses. Compared to central London our public transport is laughable.

I'm a shift worker. I would have no way of getting home from late shifts and there's no way I could afford the weekly charge of getting to and from work in a non compliant car.

And now some of our friends and family who live outside of London have to pay to visit us.

The air quality round here is fine. There's no reason for this except to make money off drivers.

That poor girl in Streatham was proven to have died from bad air quality

One person. What about all those that have been stabbed? Why doesn't the mayor care about them?

Answer: because there is no money to be made

Her name was Ella Kissi-Debrah

Air pollution a cause of UK girl's death, coroner rules | CNN

And she is not the only one whose health has been harmed.

But the mayor also announced a major strategy to combat knife crime. Personally I don't think it has had the effect expected, but he does have policies and spending on it. I think some of the difference is physics. Particulate matter in the air can be dealt with (by not putting it there in the first place) but crime does not have one single effective remedy of that sort.

The car was the liberator of the masses, that's why they need to stop you. Going after old ICE now in the name of "ThE eNvIrOnMeNt", which pushes the poor to cars they can't afford. Eventually they're going after all ICE, pushing anyone who wants a car to a £50k BEV that they can't afford. So only the well to do will be able to drive. Which won't matter, because in our 15 minute cities, we'll be caged up anyway.