Mayor plans to introduce Ultra Low Emission Zone in April 2019

Diesel-chugging, often-idling black cabs will be exempt. Looks like lobbying works a treat on Sadiq Khan.

Except when lobbyists are trying to protect London’s historic woodland and green spaces.

I do not think it is true to say that they are exempt. All newly licensed vehicles will have to comply and there is a pre-existing 15 year age limit anyway:

With the incentives to scrap the older ones, the diesel-chugger days are numbered.

With respect, your linked article was from the Boris era, and it appears Boris planned to treat black cabs the same as other vehicles.

However, from Sadiq’s announcement linked in my OP:

So my bunny hugging, kitten kissing, tree hugging diesel of three years old that was tax exempt is now not and I will have to pay for it to come to into London. However if I buy a classic 5.0 I can dive it like I stole it. Wierd.

Not sure Sadiq plans to extend the ULEZ to Norfolk

If our pint-sized mayor can’t stand up to a few taxi drivers, I don’t think he stands a chance vs thousands of angry farmers!

Zoe will be driving down once a week. Sadly fully compliant Euro 6 cars are rare, have a limited range and are bloody expensive.

You might want to have a look at this: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/new-era-for-londons-taxi-and-private-hire-trades

The action plan means that older cabs are being encouraged to be scrapped and no new diesel cabs will be licenced from next year. I think this is one of the things that the cabbies keep demonstrating about. I got a cab home a couple of months ago and the cabbie told me (at great length) about the amount he had to pay for a new cab recently.

The zero emissions ranks are going to be interesting.

Definitely worth people checking how their vehicle fairs against the new plans. Pre 2001 automatically attracts the £10 charge. If and when expanded to the A205 and A406, I can see a LOT of people getting caught up paying the extra fees.

I love the idea of cleaner air, but hate the idea of people being forced out of cars which they rely on.

Sounds so idyllic, but in reality is going to be hell. IF he remains in til 2021.

I like this bit…

If you live in the area, but in some peoples opinions “don’t care enough” to get a cleaner car… You get a discount. So locals can pollute their own area for just £1 a day. Bargain!

Discounts and exemptions

If you live in the Congestion Charge zone and your vehicle is registered for a Residents’ Discount you will receive a 90% discount, meaning you pay £1 per day for the T-Charge

OR

London licensed Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (exempt)

Didn’t see that coming now did we!

From a quick look at this today @anon64893700, expansion of the ULEZ beyond the current congestion charging zone seems to have been dropped from Sadiq’s plans. I don’t know if this is because the assessments show that the legal limits can be met in a reasonable timescale with just this, or if it is a genuine weakening of his proposals.

It’s worth remembering that this isn’t just about cleaner air for the sake of cleaner air, there are thousands of lives prematurely lost each year in London because of air pollution. It also permanently compromises children’s lung development and has a big cost to the economy. Given how many car journeys in London could easily be walked or cycled instead, and how many are of questionable necessity, I’m all for measures to get people out of their cars or at least into cleaner ones. Including cabbies.

Ironically, this week is a great example of unnecessary journeys. With the schools off, at school run time, the roads are empty. I realise this is partially due to parents taking time off work. But there is no ignoring the thousands of short school run journeys done daily, resulting in idling cars sitting right outside school.

Food for thought

Short school runs are one thing. Idling while waiting is something else.

We gave up with the 122 because of the number of times my daughter would wait for it, only to see it go by without stopping because it was full.

I completely agree about the school run being problematic. Across Forest Hill, Sydenham and Perry Vale wards, 26% of children are driven to primary school according to the latest available data. That’s up to 3,500 trips every morning and afternoon. The visible difference between traffic levels during term time and holidays is further evidence of this.

To resolve this we need to provide safe routes for children to walk and cycle to school. I quite like this idea, but maybe it is a bit extreme:

Completely agreed about this bit. We rarely drive the school run but this would help a lot I think. The ULEZ, if extended to here, would help some too as you can really notice the pollution at street level on Brockley Rise for instance.

What about introducing a school bus run?

How exactly does us fighting our way through traffic make parents “lazy”??? (I realise you’re only posting the story, @brencud - my comment is directed at the article!)

Cars idling outside schools and parked on zigzags is one of my personal pet hates (pretty sure I have posted about this before). It’s like ‘oh the air in London isn’t bad enough, so I’ll sit in my car with the engine running so the kids can breathe in more fumes as they walk past, and if I see the parking warden coming I can pretend I wasn’t really parking at all’.
There should be on the spot fines!

Actually, I wonder if people realise it’s now illegal to use your mobile phone in a car unless you are parked with engine off? Most of the people I see in the idling cars are looking at their phones. Maybe that would deter people.

Recently a traffic warden has been coming to our school at pick-up time and had a busy time issuing tickets. It’s amazing how people seem to think remonstrating ‘I was only stopped on the double yellows / zigzags for a minute while I picked up my child!’ will make the parking warden change their mind!

As for encouraging more walking to school - one thing that would make a difference is safer crossings, . The new pedestrian crossings at the bottom of Brockley Rise are helpful, but Cranston Road is a nightmare to cross especially at the junction with Woolstone Road. Cars drive much too fast down it. Often parents are nervous about letting older children walk to school by themselves because of the roads.

No longer a parent of school age children I am confused, so much press is attributed to catchment areas only 10 feet from the school gates (exaggeration) but seriously if this is becoming a factor, surely driving to school is not required.Save in situations whereby a school preference is outside the normal area?

Crossing Perry Vale by the shops (Siddons Road) is a nightmare and whilst there is an island it is quite scary with a pushchair to squeeze in when a bus or lorry wooshes by. There is a road narrowing opposite the old fire station but it is too close to the roundabout to be safe. If there was a need for a zebra/ light controlled crossing this is where it is needed.

Actually not. The proposal will be subject to a consultation later in this year.

Clearly, bisecting SE23 is a major issue for this forum. Personally, I have 3 non-compliant vehicles (all petrol) and therefore am highly aggrieved that trips to Honor Oak, Dulwich or Peckham will now potentially attract a £12.50 fee because Volkswagen cheated and most vehicles permitted in the Congestion Charging Zone are diesel public service vehicles. I’m not a rich man and won’t be able to afford to upgrade my fleet to newer petrol vehicles.

I’m also annoyed because it includes motorcycles which are almost exclusively petrol. This will cost me a lot of money and will have no benefit to air quality in London by TfL’s own modelling (which excludes updated post-diesel-gate figures).

However, a wider concern will be a) the proliferation of signs required on the South Circular and other pieces of enforcement infrastructure like cameras and b) the fact that delivery vehicles will need to upgrade to almost brand new vehicles driving up the cost of deliveries and business. If anyone has ever looked at the cost of commercial vehicles, they’ll know that they aren’t cheap and businesses will either be forced to buy new fleet or close down.

The politics of this are also bonkers, with Labour-voting Inner London getting hammered a year after a Mayoral election, but that’s surely something for Politicos…

Agreed about the exemption for black cabs which is very frustrating, in particular as they are one root cause of the traffic problems Central London sees everyday in the first place. The sad truth is though that the cabbies have got a very strong lobby indeed which I suspect could have even achieved a derailment of the whole scheme unless City Hall would give in to certain compromises.

Aside from this point I find that the Mayor, if what you say is true, has got his priorities right in putting tackling toxic emissions above blocking crucial house building on spurious grounds. I can’t think of any significant green spaces or historic woodlands being lost on our patch in the recent past, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Sydenham Woods, One Tree Hill and the like will still be there for everyone to enjoy at the end of Sadiq’s term, and long thereafter for that matter.

I’d rather give up a few acres of so called green space here and there around the edges than keep breathing the fumes from ever increasing traffic on our high streets. I would however certainly by fully supportive of actually planting more trees alongside our streets but I suspect that many residents wouldn’t, being worried about the shade or potential loss in car parking space.

Just to pick up on this one point, our local green space is under multiple threats at the moment, not least the HopCroft plan which proposed house building on land next to Honor Oak station

I think @BlancheCameron and @LewisSchaffer might be able to confirm otherwise.

With all due respect, but what you’re describing suggests that the proposed ULEZ seems to achieve exactly its intended purpose. If someone owning three non-compliant (personal?) cars and a motorbike(?) wouldn’t be incentivised to rethink their life choices then it would probably miss the trick. The other point of cause is that the charge only applies if the car actually enters the zone. Now given that one can hardly drive three cars and a motorbike at the same time, the number of cars owned shouldn’t be a material cost factor here. This ain’t nothing to do with VW in my view.

If the cars are for business use, then it looks indeed that there will be an unexpected cost knocking on the door that will have to be entered into spread sheets to work out the best cause of action. Given that the plans won’t implemented overnight, there is good time to plan for the times ahead and tighten the belt if needed.

Land yes, but only half of it green space (at most) with the rest being concreted over, fly-tipped and inaccessible to the public hence of little value to the community (I know a few who actually regard it as an eyesore), plus directly adjacent to “real” green space of probably at least hundred times the size.

I’m aware of this being discussed at length on this blog, so I won’t further dwell on it.

It used to be SINC-status green land but Southwark Council neglected it and now, here we are.

If they get away with building housing on this neglected land, they’ll have set a perverse and dangerous precedent.

On of the major issues that I foresee for our area resulting from the extended ULEZ is the fact that all the non-compliant cars, or their drivers rather, will try to avoid the zone wherever possible even it this involves a detour, meaning not only a higher concentration of those cars on the South Circular and any roads south thereof, but also more traffic in general. It will be interesting to see whether this would actually make air quality worse, but I wouldn’t expect it getting any better, around Forest Hill station in particular.

OK, for clarity -
My family has two cars and one motorcycle. One car is a large people carrier my wife uses for work which can’t be upgraded to a newer vehicle because car manufacturers don’t make cost-effective 8 seat cars. The other is my 5 seater car which I use for work and for ferrying my two small children. As both myself and my wife work from home, the cars aren’t used at peak times for pollution, and, as noted, all the vehicles are petrol. None of these things are a “life choice” and all have a practical commercial use. Of course, assuming I need to use all of them at some point, they will all need replacing and therefore the number of vehicles is indeed material. If I don’t replace them, then the policy would have failed in its aim to improve encourage people to only drive newer cars.

Moreover, you have failed to note the point of “non-compliant”. This was an arbitrary age decided upon by policy wonks at TfL (who are nice people) based upon flawed data. Transport and Environment (a Brussels NGO) have shown that many diesel vehicles emit pollutants 35 times their limit when tested in “real world” conditions. The gap for petrol vehicles is significantly smaller. This data was released after TfL’s modelling took place. This effectively means that TfL will be punishing all car owners (and motorcycle owners) for owning older and cheaper vehicles because diesel vehicles cheated on their emissions testing and the regulations aren’t modelled closely enough on real world use. I, and many Forest Hill residents, are collateral damage.

This policy needs to be rethought.

A large area of Camberwell Old Cemetery woodland has been cleared, the photo in this article shows this very well:

Also a glade has been removed from One Tree Hill, included a 60ft poplar and about 40 oaks:
http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/southwark-breaches-planning/4593745140

It doesn’t stop there, more felling to come.

Mature trees are able to scrub the air of NOx and PM. This is making a contribution to our air quality right now - low cost too. It will take many years for new growth to replace that function. It may take as long to ban diesels, worthy intervention though that is.

Sorry, this is inaccurate. The only portion of hard standing was used for foundations for temporary site offices when the station lifts were installed IIRC. There is an access gravel road also. Most of the remaining much larger area is grassland which includes a wild flower meadow on the embankment - this looks rather superb in summer.

I agree that it could have improved value to the community, which of course it had when there were big trees on it (Southwark council were responsible for that too). In the meantime it serves an additional function by linking with other green spaces such as the one you mention (also threatened) and others locally. An important green corridor.

I can’t think of any but others might. Heard of lots of street trees and trees in school playgrounds being wantonly felled though - to save money not health obviously.

On the black cab issue, I think they might be being made exempt because of new policy coming in that all new licensed black taxis have to be electric from 2018 and existing will be offered incentives to transfer to electric. Bit more info here

I just received an email from TfL with a link to the consultation on the ULEZ proposals. Posting here in case anyone else hadn’t noticed that you can submit views until June.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-2/?cid=airquality-consultation

The new 24/7 Ultra Low Emission Zone starts in central London on 8 April and vehicles passing through will have to comply or pay a daily fee.

From 25 Oct 2021, the ULEZ will be extended to include large parts of Lewisham

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I would have thought cab apps such as Uber and ViaVan are just as much to blame as Khan’s ULEZ? It’s much easier to book a private hire vehicle using them than calling up Forest Hill Cars for example.

I don’t think people rely on cars as much as they think they do. There are other options and people are resourceful enough to find better ways.

I hate the idea of pollution being linked to asthma, childhood illness and death, & other lung disease, cancer, dementia, psychosis, heart disease, and stroke.

I’m mystified that people spend hours sat in their cars and the spend extra time and money going to the gym. Why not just integrate activity into the time we already spend getting about?

And it’s frustrating people lead sedentary lives associated with every type of ill health and then draw more heavily on the NHS to sort it out than if they had lead active lives.