Khan taking the piss yet again....

If ULEZ is a "cash cow" and has nothing to do with polution, then how is it that in 2020, four years after Khan introduced the Low Emmissions Zone, polution, namely Nitrogen Dioxide had seen a dramatic and significent fall.

Four years after the first zone was introduced, there was a 94% reduction in the numbers of people living in areas of inner London with illegal levels of Nitrogen Dioxide.

Doctor Gary Fuller is an air polution expert at Imperial College, London, and he stated that "Breathing bad air has had an intolerable impact on Londoners’ health for far too long [but], starting around 2016, London’s air pollution underwent a dramatic change, “The changes in NO2 in central London and along main bus routes were some of the fastest that we’ve ever measured” in 30 years of monitoring, he said. “These successes show that our city’s air pollution is not an intractable problem.”

Professor Stephev Holgate (Special Advisor on Air Quality to The Royal College of Physicians) "Air pollution is a scourge on society, especially harming the young and old. What the mayor of London has shown in his first term is that major reductions in toxic pollutants can be achieved and that businesses and the public are willing to make the necessary changes to deliver this.” He said the pollution cuts would have enormous benefits for Londoners"

The Government did not insist that Khan should implement the expansion of ULEZ to cover all of London ,

From O London

It  becomes increasingly relevant when looking at what subsequent funding agreements include. For example in the following letter, sent on October 31 2020, the only reference to the ULEZ is that TfL/the mayor “maintains commitment to the decision made by the Mayor on 6 June 2018 to create a single larger ULEZ bounded by the North Circular and South Circular Roads with the extension coming into effect as planned on 25 October 2021”.

And in the next agreement between TfL and the government, outlined in a letter dated June 1 2021, former transport secretary Grant Shapps writes that “should the Mayor choose to amend his existing plans to extend the ULEZ boundary from 25 October 2021 these will have to be paid for without recourse to Government funding and without recourse to additional borrowing, savings, service changes or deferrals”.

“Additional income streams for any such increases will need to be identified and shared with Government,” he adds.

The only time the forthcoming expansion to cover all of Greater London is referenced in any of the communications is in the letter for the most recent funding settlement, dated August 30, 2022. In it, Mr Shapps, at this point still the transport secretary, notes Mr Khan’s intention to consult on a London-wide ULEZ “for introduction in 2023, to improve air quality in London”.

He continues to write that while TfL has estimated the scheme will cost £250 million, the grant funding from government “should not be used to cover the costs of your policy decisions to charge road users, and therefore if you choose to implement this scheme or other road user charging options, you must fund them through alternative sources available to you”.

The funding agreement included in this letter is to run until March 2024, with no further correspondence included in TfL’s funding letters library. And so, based on this, it appears as if no requirements were put on the mayor by government to roll out the ULEZ as planned on August 29.

I suspect that Khan is toast come the next mayoral election.

Come to mention it, I suspect that Labours popularity will be taking a nosedive in London too.

Good.

Good for you. Sadly, I still work in London.

That said, I suspect that ULEZ or a version thereof will be rolled out nationally if Labour get in.

We are sleepwalking into 1984 and some brain-deads think it's a good idea.