Phil Taylor, a Councillor in Ealing, examines the value of Livingstone's Low Emission Zone.
At 00:00 hours today the Mayor's Low Emission Zone came into force. Large commercial vehicle operators must now ensure that they have modern vehicles or upgrade them so that they meet emissions standards (Euro III) or pay £200 a day to bring them inside the GLA area. If anyone brings a non-compliant vehicle into the LEZ without paying the fee they are liable for a £1,000 fine. Over time the scheme will apply to smaller vehicles such as large vans and minibuses and the emissions standards will be uprated to Euro IV. The only good news for the operators of large freight vehicles is that they will have 28 days grace from today and they will be issued with dummy notices rather than real fines.
This scheme is a very inefficient way of providing the health benefits it claims for itself and is pretty much unwanted by Londoners who are largely uninterested in it. One reason they are so apathetic is that it is perceived to be, quite wrongly, a tax on other people - just like the Congestion Charge. The Congestion Charge never had much serious opposition because most Londoners live outside the central zone and if they commute in they do so on public transport. Those commuting by car into central London are a minority and no-one much minds if they pay £8 a day for the privilege. Many Londoners probably think much the same way about the LEZ. They are wrong. They will pay for this scheme in higher prices and unemployment. The health benefits they receive will be small and transitory. The older vehicles which were producing particulate and NOx pollutants yesterday on London's roads would have been phased out in any case in the coming months or a matter of a few years at the most.
The LEZ has been sold to the public with a lovely green advertising campaign that uses Teletubbies style graphics. The Mayor spent £1.9 million running a consultation on this scheme about this time last year. Most of this money was spent on the Teletubbies ad campaign. The Mayor knows that green sells and although this scheme provides almost no environmental benefits, it is essentially an expensive public health scheme, he knows that it will be popular if it is sold right. He wasn't really interested in the answers to the questions asked in the consultation. The consultation was really only a vehicle to justify the ad campaign.
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