There’s ‘no support’ for ULEZ in the Royal Borough, says cabinet …

The Royal Borough’s cabinet member for highways and transport has said the borough is heavily against the impending ULEZ expansion.

The Mayor of London’s controversial ULEZ scheme sees drivers face a daily charge of £12.50 if their vehicles don’t meet emissions standards.

The initiative is set to be extended to all London boroughs on Tuesday.

This means the Royal Borough’s eastern border will lie just a few miles outside the zone, and commuters and travellers heading to Heathrow Airport will be affected if their vehicle is non-compliant.

Councillor Geoff Hill (tBfI, Oldfield) has said he does not believe there is ‘any support’ for this in the Borough at all.

“It’s like another mortgage. It’s an enormous amount of money,” he said.

“It’s pulling money out of peoples’ pockets who haven’t got it. The people by and large with older more polluting cars are people without too much money and they can’t afford this.

“You get to the position where the people who have the fancy expensive cars can drive as often as they like, but if you can’t afford that, you’re stuck – it penalises people for not having a lot of money.

“It’s a terrible situation. People are trapped – they’ve got to go to work to earn money and can’t afford the cost.”

He added: “It’s the wrong measure to help with air quality – the real measure is not licensing polluting vehicles in the first place. Central government needs to stop licensing polluting cars.

“It’s no good taxing them off the road because you end up with families who don’t have enough to eat.”

Cllr Hill added that the council is ‘completely opposed’ to anything like ULEZ in the borough.

He added that the council would ‘love to help’ people in Windsor and Maidenhead who might be financially affected by driving to London for work under the new plans – but cannot afford it.

“We’ve got enough difficulties of our own without taking on paying ULEZ charges,” he said.

“Central government needs to step up to the plate to sort this one out. The only thing the Government could do is provide some sort of grant.”

This week a scrappage scheme was announced for every Londoner with a non-compliant car. They can apply for a £2,000 grant, in the hopes this will cover the cost of a ULEZ-compliant car.

But Cllr Hill is sceptical.

“Two thousand pounds really doesn’t cut it these days,” he said.

“There needs to be a sensible scrappage scheme that makes a real difference to people.

“If we’re serious about getting polluting cars off the road, we need a national scrapping scheme.”

He said that the Government can provide support in other ways – such as funding more bus routes. At the moment, the borough has a one-off grant £437,000 for this.

Cllr Hill said: “What we really need is funding for the next five years – then we can start a service with confidence that we have a bus service for the next five years.

“Half a million pounds really doesn’t go far. Another million pounds ringfenced, we could really do something with that.

Cllr Hill also wants to see more government financial support for the rail network – passed onto commuters in the form of reduced fares.

A TfL spokesperson said: “London has made significant progress over the last six years in improving air quality, but it sadly remains the case that thousands of Londoners die prematurely each year as a result of toxic pollution.

“The London-wide ULEZ is vital in tackling the triple challenges of air pollution, the climate emergency and congestion, and will help millions more people breathe cleaner air.

The Mayor of London has written to the Government ‘on numerous occasions’ to ask for a national scrappage scheme ‘which could cover people who drive into London from the Home Counties with the most polluting vehicles’.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The Mayor has been clear that the decision to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone London-wide was not an easy one, but necessary to tackle toxic air pollution and the climate crisis.”

The Department for Transport were contacted for comment.