A London-wide low-emission zone will go ahead in 2008, but mayor Ken Livingstone is offering operators of trucks and buses more time before tightening the limit for particulates.
Livingstone’s announcement that he was going to press ahead with consultation on a scheme order at the end of this year won approval from public health campaigners, although his concessions failed to appease critics of the controversial charging scheme. From early 2008, diesel lorries, coaches and buses which fail to meet a minimum pollution standard will have to pay a charge to drive within Greater London.
Operating seven days a week, the scheme will use cameras, registration number-recognition and the DVLA database to identify vehicles liable for the charge and is intended to act as an incentive for operators to replace or modify ‘dirty vehicles’.
The scheme will start with heavier lorries over 12t, rather than 7.5t, as proposed in the earlier February consultation, and the Euro III standard for particulates would be extended to cover vans and minibuses from 2010.
Operators of diesel-engined lorries, coaches and buses will be given until 2012, rather than 2010, to comply with the much stricter Euro IV standard.
The changes had ‘softened the blow to industry,’ the Freight Transport Association said, but it claimed that the scheme was a ‘dog’s breakfast’ which would have four different implementation dates and deal only with particulates.
Head of policy, Gordon Telling, called for a ‘simpler, more effective’ rolling age scheme – retiring the oldest vehicles first – that would also tackle nitrogen oxides and other pollutants.
The business organisation, London First, favours a central London LEZ for all vehicles that would cost £30M. The scheme had the worst cost-benefit ratio (0.4:1) of all TfL’s projects, said chief executive Jo Valentine. ‘We will be pressing the mayor on why he is wasting £130M of taxpayers’ money on a scheme which will perform five times worse than normal guidelines.’
TfL quotes research indicating that PM10 air pollution caused around 1,000 early deaths in London and another 1,000 hospital admissions in 2005. PM10 concentrations exceed European standards.
‘London suffers the worst air quality in the UK and among the worst in Europe,’ said Livingstone. ‘The proposed zone is the most effective way of quickly reducing pollutants that are among the most harmful to human health.’