Because of Brexit, understandably the ULEZ issue has largely beein ignored by the media. April 8th brings chaos, confusion and more costs to nearly 70,000 drivers every day when ULEZ goes into operation.

• The impact of this policy, will hit low income families, drivers, small businesses, haulage and motorbikers hard and will not significantly improve air quality.

• FairFuelUK is calling on Transport for London (TfL) and the Mayor of London, despite repeated formal requests, the last of which was only 2 weeks before implementation of ULEZ, provide incontrovertible scientific/medical evidence that taxing drivers entering the ULEZ will significantly improve air quality. So far they refuse to engage with the majority of drivers’ concerns.

FairFuelUK spent time in the High Court on Friday to seek legal administrative advice to fight London’s ULEZ. Following this meeting, with more planned this week, TfL’s Lawyers emailed FairFuelUK at 17:08 on Friday to request information as to a potential injunction FairFuelUK is planning to implement. FairFuelUK happily responded requesting to meet on Saturday morning. TfL lawyers subsequently turned down any chance of meeting FairFuelUK.

In FairFuelUK’s survey of 22,678 road users across the UK nearly 7 out of 10 do not believe Ultra Low Emissions Zones will improve air quality. Only 1 in 4 in London believe it will be effective.

TfL has also failed to properly explain the arrangements for individual testing of vehicles to secure an exemption.

ULEZ will generate massive confusion, cost and injustice, especially for the least wealthy commuters in London, while still exposing those individuals to massively greater air pollution e.g. in the London Underground versus that faced at street level.

TfL has, furthermore, chosen to ignore practical low-cost approaches that have been proven to improve air quality considerably more effectively than TfL’s current slant in taxing low income drivers, families and small businesses. Why is that?

• Colin Brown, Motorcycle Action Group said: ‘A rider on a non-exempt motorcycle such as a Honda C90, with a tiny engine, which does over 100mpg, would cost the 5 day a week commuter £62.50 in the new emissions tax, increasing the cost of going to work by over 1,000% for no environmental benefit. This is a tax on poor riders on older machines, which is discriminatory, unfair and environmentally counter-productive because motorcycles are, in fact, part of the emissions solution.’
   ‘The idea of charging a biker with an engine size that’s less than one fifth the capacity of a single cylinder of an exempt sports car is insanely unfair and illogical. If this was all about the environment, they would never have even suggested this. No other city in Britain is doing this so transport for London stands alone in this senseless charge on clean machines – unless the rider jumps through costly hoops to seek an individual exemption.’