Charge for polluting cars to cover whole of London from August

Drivers must pay £12.50 per day if their vehicles do not meet requirements on cleaner emissions A £12.50 (aprox. $25.00) daily charge for polluting cars will be expanded across the whole of London next August to clean up toxic air in the capital’s outer boroughs. About five million more Londoners will breathe cleaner air under the move, which marks a dramatic expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone.

First created in 2019, the ULEZ expanded to the city’s north and south circular roads last year. But among the estimated 4,000 premature deaths from air pollution in the capital each year, the highest numbers are all in ten outer London boroughs.

Drivers have to pay the charge if their vehicle is considered polluting enough to be non-compliant, which is based on different European emissions standards for petrol and diesel cars, vans and motorcycles. Typically, the charge applies to diesel cars older than 2015 and petrol models from before 2005.

The wider zone will be backed by a £110 million scrappage fund to help people switch to lower emission vehicles and what Khan said was the biggest expansion of bus routes in outer London’s history. Drivers in the outer boroughs will also be offered the option of a travelcard worth more than swapping a polluting vehicle for a cleaner one under the scrappage scheme.

Khan said he was driven by the need to tackle air pollution, climate change and congestion. The mayor said he had been “profoundly” influenced by Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, the mother of Ella, an asthmatic nine-year old whose death a coroner last year ruled was linked to the city’s toxic air.

The Times