I think you’re a little out of touch here Mark - there seem to be plenty or ‘ordinary’ people concerned over this. General opinion seems to be it’s ultimately a good thing (to have cleaner air in London) but needed managing better, particularly supporting those at the bottom of the pile living outside but working inside London too. SK was quite robust this morning on R4, presenting the ‘it’s for a better future for your children’ argument, which is of course true.
Having been a ‘greater’ Londoner, I can well imagine ordinary folks thinking Rich B@st@rd doesn’t bother him, even though they’ll benefit. Control from the centre always felt hostile, and likely this even more so.
Not to say it isn’t the right thing to do, but people are much more aware of the stick than the carrot.
At the end of the day people need a kick in the pants to change. £12.50 is expensive but if you are coming into central London from some distance away the odds are it is less than your current petrol (and congestion charge) bill. For various reasons I’ve spent the last week doing a 66 mile round (edit: oops, got that wrong) each way trip to Leicester every day, my daily commute has been further in the past. At today’s petrol prices and 35mpg that’s about £26-28 per day.
It will be the people making 5 to 10 mile journeys in greater London - not going to the centre - that this affects. I quite agree people won’t change unless given a reason to do so that they cannot dodge.
As you rightly note I’m out of touch, as haven’t visited outer London for eight years and it’s forty since I lived in inner London, when in those days even poor people could afford to live in places like Camden and Little Venice and the outer suburbs remained an unknown world of 1930’s urban sprawl and Hornby Dublo architecture. However, regarding the level of opposition, I suggest that the BBC’s need for ‘balance’ on every news item often means one gets an unrealistic reflection of a actual situation.
There’s a lot of noisy opposition to ULEZ, but surely @billybutcher’s points above are sound. What are these complainants driving? Why are they driving into London in presumably pretty old cars (we’re not talking classics while, from personal experience I’d suggest that city commuting in a classic car can be a nightmare, even with a Kevlar fan installed)
The BBC were quite clever with their selection of interviewees, so first up was someone who was providing care at home for older people, driving a Vauxhall Mokka. SK was quite adamant she’d easily find viable a replacement for £2K, she seemed much less certain.
Bikes and public transport are the obvious things, I’d quite agree, but I can imagine there are some for whom it will definitely impose a hardship that they would not have had previously due to personal circumstances. It seems likely that will just be the price for ‘doing the right thing’ - can you save everyone?
Unless she’s self employed she’s got an employer in which case she is almost certainly getting reimbursed for costs incurred travelling for work. If she’s self employed it can be set against income for tax purposes (HMRC have confirmed this) which lessens (though does not eliminate) the impact.
TBH it’s the small businesses that are going to be at the thick end of this, if you have 6 employees, each driving a Euro 5 diesel van it’s going to be a pain to update the fleet, even with the scrappage allowance. Perhaps some leeway would have been worth it there (even if only a “bulk discount” on the fee, say £50 a month or something).
Clearly she should have been - well, OK I suppose that’s a grey area if that part of her work which would be considered her morning commute involved driving into the ULEZ.
However there are cars on Autotrader which are ULEZ compliant (Euro 4 petrol, Euro 6 diesel) for < £2k.
Admittedly if everyone who needs one tries to swap cars that might change rather rapidly.
I heard Sadiq Khan on LBC last week and the only genuine argument I heard put forward was from someone (a window cleaner, iirc) who lived in Essex and worked in Greater London. This guy had a non-compliant vehicle but wasn’t eligible for the scrappage scheme.
Khan was firm but honest with the caller. He’s not in a position to use the limited resources at his disposal as Mayor of London to provide benefits for people who live outside London. Whilst I had some sympathy with the caller, it’s hard to disagree with Khan.
Writing as a life long asthmatic, due probably to London smog in the fifties, I welcome any initiatives to reduce pollution . However much as I detest Sunak’s opportunistic attempt to weaponise it, IMO Khan has screwed up the expansion.
When I heard him today bleating on about the health benefits I was reminded of the ‘75 UK referendum to join the EEC. My landlord asked me what I thought and I said we should join, he said that all the benefits would accrue (or words to that effect because as he was a rough bastard) to the next generation and he had no kids, so sod that I learnt a lesson then (at 22) that Kahn (at 53) has yet to learn.
If you are just scraping by and keeping an old banger on the road, unless you have a kiddy or another loved one with asthma, air quality (or the EEC in 75) is a vague and irrelevant concept. You’re worried how to get by day to day as it is. Earlier today I saw a n 88 year old woman on the TV protesting (for the first time in her life she said, and bravo to her) at Number Ten about how, with ULEZ, she and her 90 year old hubby were pretty well immobilised. Could I have voted for some jammy Uxbridge Labour candidate supporting that? I don’t think so.
This whole ULEZ and the expansion of same could have been handled so much better, no Nazi tactics (as some in France have experienced in enforcement), gradual introduction, ie start at £2 and ramp up year by year, exemptions for the elderly, etc, etc.
I always suspected Khan was a little shit (like his predecessor) , Starmer should have brought him to heel a long time ago instead of making a fool of himself post the Uxbridge loss on ULEZ posturing.
I think the UK electorate choice next time around is between dumb and dumber.
It is staggering how the result in 1 by election has completely changed policy of both parties.
If a couple of thousand people had voted differently in Uxbridge by election this scrapping of all green measures would not have happened- how short sighted.
ULEZ introduced by Johnson and the expansion insisted upon by government (a condition of retaining funding) - but neither party now support it???!
It is surely not beyond the wit of man to understand that people need time to make such a drastic change to their way of life, especially if this will involve financial hardship.
Care workers, who are very poorly paid, need a car to get to the vulnerable people they give daily help.
So, effectively it is not just the people who own non conforming cars, but people who are kept out of social housing too.
How can you critisise the crit air when you are obsessed with the ULEZ. Hypocritical falls to mind. Oh I read the ego stroking pamphlet, WALOT is all one can say to most of it.
I agree with your sentiment but surely tongue in cheek for the owner of a recently purchased new Audi ICE supercharger which probably cost as much as 2 battery powered cars.
I dont. But the methods used. If coercion or threatening doesnt work then we will tax the arse of you.
Anyhow Sad IQ wont be in power longer than necessary, if the next one has the cahony’s then the ULEZ will be gone
I can’t really add much more, because I got to work by then.
I learnt a lesson then (at 22) that Kahn (at 53) has yet to learn.
