Ulez (the Ultra Low Emission Zone) is set to be expanded to include London's entire boroughs.
It means that drivers will have to pay a charge of £12.50 per day to drive a non-compliant vehicle anywhere in the zone under the controversial clean-air plan.
With a £160m scrappage scheme set to be available for all the city’s residents to claim from, a maximum of £2,000 will be on offered per vehicle. Small businesses, sole traders and charities are included in the scheme.
TfL (Transport for London) have said that it would install 2,750 cameras across outer London. Some 1,900 cameras have already been erected, which is almost 70% of the planned total.
The Met Police has received hundreds of reports of criminal damage being done to cameras, with more than 300 of them either vandalised or stolen. In response, TfL's director of transport strategy and policy, Christina Calderato, said: “The transport authority is ready for the expansion.”
She also recommended that people sign-up to the schemes Auto Pay account on the TfL website, where drivers are automatically charged so that they will never receive a PCN (penalty charge notice). Those driving in the zone in a non-compliant car will have to pay the £12.50 charge online or by phone up to three days after they travelled.
The penalty for not paying is set at £180, which goes down to £90 if it is paid within 14 days.
Mayor Khan said that more than 15,000 applications had been made to the Ulez scrappage scheme in the past week. Since the announcement was made about the expansion in 2022, it has been met with opposition by some politicians and motorists.
Five Conservative councils took the policy to the High Court but lost after the judge ruled that the mayor’s expansion decision was within his powers.
Clean air activist, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah's daughter Ella's death in 2013 was attributed to air pollution. She supported the Ulez expansion but had concerns about the impact on lower-income families.
"Unfortunately, it does cost to clean up the air and this isn't a party political thing, we need the Government to contribute because the more money there is in the scrappage scheme, you can bring more people in”, she said.
"Of course I'm concerned because we don't want the poorest to be impacted, but to speak to those people who are incredibly poor, who don't even own a car, who are on the main roads waiting for buses, I hope in time, they will have cleaner air as well because they don't even own a car and yet they are adversely impacted." The Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall has pledged to reverse the Ulez expansion if she is elected mayor in May 2024.
