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“Khan must go,” reads the protester’s sign. The photo was taken in Tooting in South London last weekend.
1 / 2Photo: Jeff Moore/PA/AP/TT
The mayor emphasizes that it saves thousands of lives every year. Opponents call it a punitive tax on poor commuters. And municipalities are trying to rebel.
But despite the tensions, London’s “ultra-environmental zone” Ulez has now been extended to include upwards of ten million people.
The zone means that old cars with poor emissions must pay £12.50-£27.50 (between approximately SEK 175 and 375) to drive in London – every day.
For Mayor Sadiq Khan and many environmentally committed Londoners, it is a must, to clean the British capital’s notoriously bad air and avoid large amounts of disease and premature death. Khan also offers a scrapping bonus of £2,000 (28,000 kroner) for old cars and £1,000 for motorbikes.
Johnson’s project
However, this does not bite the thousands of commuters and tradesmen who believe that they are completely dependent on their old vehicles, and already so pressed by the economic crisis that they cannot possibly afford to get new, cleaner cars.
From the beginning, the project was still a profile issue for the cycling-loving right-wing mayor, and later the prime minister, Boris Johnson. But now, on the contrary, Ulez has become a bat for the right against the social democrat Khan in particular and also his opposition Labor party in general.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, from Johnson’s right-wing Tories party, tried to ride on commuters’ discontent by naming the car a symbol of freedom. However, it failed, as he claimed to make the move from the driver’s seat of the legendary representative Margaret Thatcher’s old Rover – which turned out not to be entirely true.
Neighboring counties do not want to sign
But according to British media, even Khan’s own party leader Keir Starmer is worried about how Ulez will influence public opinion, and has tried in vain to get London to wait. Nevertheless, the expansion of the zone took effect on Tuesday morning.
However, the last word will not be said, especially as a number of legal question marks linger. Among them is that almost all surrounding counties have refused to put up road signs warning of the emission zone in protest, reports the BBC. Motorists thus risk missing driving into the zone. The question has already been raised as to who in that case should pay any fines – the motorist or the authority that refused to display the sign?
FACT Environmental zones
London is just one of a growing number of European cities that are penalizing or banning dirty cars, hoping to tackle air pollution that is sabotaging public health and costing health care billions.
The fee for driving in London’s environmental zone (Ulez, Ultra Low Emission Zone) is £12.50 (about SEK 175) per day. On top of that, in central London there is a daily congestion tax of 15 pounds (roughly 200 kroner) that all exhaust vehicles must pay.
To avoid the Ulez fee in London, you must have an electric car or a petrol/diesel car with new exhaust gas treatment. Put simply, this means that petrol cars must be newer than 2005, diesels newer than 2015.
If and when exhaust cars will be fully ported from London has not been announced. But in Paris, which has similar air problems, it has already been said that within the environmental zone, no exhaust cars will be allowed from 2030.
The equivalent in Sweden is called environmental zone 1, 2 and 3. The strictest, environmental zone 3, does not allow exhaust vehicles. It has not yet been introduced anywhere, but Stockholm and Gothenburg plan to establish environmental zone 3 in smaller parts of the cities.
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