Five Conservative councils have launched a judicial review against Transport for London (TfL) and London mayor Sadiq Khan over the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to outer London boroughs.
Surrey County Council and the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Harrow and Hillingdon said they will challenge the expansion in the High Court on five grounds:
- Failure to comply with relevant statutory requirements
- Unlawful failure to consider expected compliance rates in outer London
- The proposed scrappage scheme was not consulted upon
- Failure to carry out any cost benefit analysis
- Inadequate consultation and/or apparent predetermination arising from the conduct of the consultation.
Hillingdon Council leader Ian Edwards said: ‘Our position has remained unchanged from when TfL’s plans were first mooted – ULEZ is the wrong solution in outer London as it will have negligible or nil impact on air quality but will cause significant social and economic harm to our residents.
‘We shared this view in our response to the TfL consultation last summer and we’ve said it since when the plans were confirmed in November. Now, we’ll say it in the courts.’
The ULEZ will not apply in the area covered by Surrey County Council but leader Tim Oliver said the impact on many of its residents and businesses would be significant and Mr Khan had offered ‘no mitigations’.
He said: 'To date, our requests for due consideration to be given to these mitigations have not been acknowledged, let alone acted upon. It’s disappointing that we, along with other local authorities, have to resort to legal proceedings to try and bring the Mayor of London to the table, but we have no choice but to do so.’
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Mr Khan said: ‘We have introduced the biggest scrappage scheme in the history of this country that will support low income families, charities, sole traders and businesses transition from a polluting vehicle to one that is less polluting.’
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