ULEZ providing Londoners with “substantially cleaner air”, says Mayor

London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan’s controversial ULEZ scheme has delivered its promise of cleaner air for Londoners, a study by City Hall has found, slashing concentrations of toxic gases by almost a third since it was implemented back in 2019.

This time last year, London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), which enforces a daily charge for those driving vehicles that don’t meet specific emissions standards, was expanded to include all Greater London boroughs.

City Hall’s One Year Report was drafted by an independent group of experts and shows that in the 12 months following this expansion, streetside nitrogen dioxide concentrations have fallen by roughly five per cent, while particulate matter from exhaust emissions in outer London is now estimated to have dipped by almost a third (31 per cent).

Looking at the bigger picture, nitrogen dioxide concentrations are now down across the entirety of the capital by 27 per cent, compared with a scenario in which the ULEZ scheme was not introduced.

Statistics aside, what does all this mean? Of course, the obvious result is better-quality air for Londoners; noxious gases emitted from cars have been proven to cause adverse effects to human health, such as lung cancer and further aggravating asthma. Historically, this has affected London’s most deprived communities, because these are typically the ones living near busy roads. City Hall’s stats show that there has been an 80 per cent dip in the number of people subjected to illegal levels of air pollution.

With improvements being seen across 99 per cent of locations across London, Sir Khan called ULEZ’s implementation “the right [decision] for the health of all Londoners”.

He added: “When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London's air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.

“With boroughs in outer London seeing some of the biggest reductions in harmful emissions and London’s deprived communities also seeing greater benefits, this report shows why expanding ULEZ London-wide was so important. ”

That said, there remains stiff opposition from the Conservatives on this issue, with Transport spokesperson and London Assembly member, Keith Prince, scorning the report as being based on “maybes, possibilities, assumptions, and straight up fantasy in order to justify a project that is saddling TfL (Transport for London) and Londoners with mountains of debt”.

Keith subsequently pointed out TfL’s recent failings when it comes to huge unpaid debts; as of September last year, there were over £375 million in outstanding ULEZ fines. “When TfL can’t even point the cameras in the right direction and end up having to write off fines for people who’ve been issued penalties incorrectly, it beggars belief that they think they can accurately measure data for a world without ULEZ that simply doesn’t exist,” he told Auto Express.

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