UKH

So let's export our pollution to the country at war, they won't notice.

Khan appears to be a hypocrite with this idea of sending vehicles, that don't comply with his ULEZ, to Ukraine. The only advantage might be if the bad fumes could be wafted towards Russia. 

The other advantage is that the Ukranian Army get much needed transport and the vehicles targeted are things like pick-ups, 4x4's and vans, etc.

The time for Ukraine to worry about vehicle emissions is not now. If it can give them any sort of advantage over the Russians then so be it.

I'm assuming the sarcasm just hasn't come through in your post, because surely nobody is ignorant enough to write that with a straight face.

They'll certainly notice when useful vehicles that are perfectly fine anywhere in the UK other than city centres start showing up to help with the war effort, rather than sent to be crushed.

Why don't you try expressing your feelings in a letter to a Ukrainian medic explaining that they can't have a perfectly fine range rover with plenty of life left in it because you'd rather see it smushed into a cube.

I'm sure they'd understand; T62s are after all famously euro6 compliant...

Ulez isn’t about pollution per-se, but the concentration of pollution in a highly dense urban centre. Removing these vehicles from London will make a notable improvement to air pollution and so quality of life.

I doubt that these vehicles will make much difference to the pollution or impact of pollution in mostly low population areas behind a 1,200 km front line with air pollution coming from heavy military vehicles, heavy artillery fire and significant low level military aviation and cruise missiles.   But they just might help save lives one way or another.

Try as I might, I can’t find any hypocrisy here.

It's almost as if it's some confected outrage to try to discredit Khan...

I enjoy a good bash at Khan as much as anyone else in outer London, but I can't see an issue with these cars getting sent to Ukraine. 

It ain't going to make me vote for him in May however.

It's also worth remembering that most of a vehicles carbon footprint is in manufacturer. So given that in Ukraine vehicles may sadly meet an untimely end, better to delay sending a vehicle to the crusher than see a freshly manufactured vehicles going out there for potentially just a few months of use.

And to everyone else too.

I may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I got the impression that people in London with foul blue smoke ancient vehicles leaving a trail of black soot wherever they go, were going to get money for old rope. I thought that this was the GLC or equivalent just trying to clear the very worst vehicles off the streets. So I obviously I got that wrong. Sorry for any offense caused.

The other matter is that so far the machinations of the London authorities has not made any difference to pollution in London, as people have so far just continued to use their vehicles, and see the charges as a tax on them. So the measured levels of CO, and nitrites etc have not gone down appreciably to this point. Maybe that's the reason for this deal with Mr Khan.

There was already a paid ULEZ scrapage scheme.  Whats happened today is that export to Ukraine through a recognised charity becomes another endpoint along with the breakers yard - for vehicle types the charity wants, which I doubt will be a large fraction of those eligible for scrappage.  Chelsea tractors, pickups and old landies most likely.

the tory candidate sounds delightful…

Examples of Conservative (in Government) support for a Labour (London) policy are as rare as rocking horse sh-t. I suspect Sadiq wisely waited for central government support (which was a long time coming) before moving to avoid a mountain of right wing criticism or a legal challenge. 

Maybe research about reduced air pollution levels in London before making such a grand sweeping statement.

from a .gov website:

‘Air pollution has been reduced London-wide, with concentrations decreasing by 65 per cent in central London, 53 per cent in inner London, and 45 per cent in outer London since 2016.’

Impressive - hats off to those that have made it happen. 

Not my old landie they don't. Although I wouldn't wish it on Ukraine. They can't afford the time to keep it going.

My information was from commentators on radio 4 in a program looking at the ULEZ approach, possibly about 2-3 months ago. Have things changed since that time?

The other thing that I am not sure about, is I thought that the maximum that can be claimed in the scheme is £2,000, and presumably that is even if the vehicle is immaculate. In the latter case would owners get more money by selling outside London or to one of the website buying companies? 

I'm guessing she liked a tweet or something similar.

With Khan you've got ULEZ, housing shortages, high crime. I'll take the tweet likes.

Very recent report, but I guess even 3 or 4 months ago some data would have been easily available  - those ‘commentators’ were most likely biased.  

https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-dramatic-improvements-londons-....

ULEZ - started by Boris Johnson, and isn’t it needed to meet the emissions targets in the capital?

Housing shortages - can’t comment on this

High Crime - that’s the government cutting funding for the police. Khan has had to close police stations, and they sold off about £1bn of assets to try and keep more officers due to the government cuts. You can hardly blame him for the cuts!

Sounds like you've done a lot of research into her before coming to that conclusion. Clearly no axe to grind with you eh.

Just to save you the effort:

She supports Trump and compared the storming of the Capitol with remainers. Yes she did like some tweets - including one that praised Enoch Powell and another that described Sadiq Khan as "the mayor of Londonistan". In fact, she thanked Katie Hopkins for the Londonistan jibe, so not just a tweet like. She tried to make political capital out of having her wallet 'stolen' on the tube in order to claim that crime was "out of control" when in fact she dropped it.

She also expressed "deep joy" at Liz Truss's mini-budget, so she obviously has a good grasp of economics. She sounds like a winner to me.

I cannot understand any Londoner being opposed to ULEZ. Air quality has considerably improved over the last few years..I have 2 daughters with asthma living there....it really is a no brainer for a sprawling city with excellent public infrastructure.The days of them coughing and wheezing as they walk next to jammed roads have long gone.

A lot of London is very green with terrible public transport.

Take this journey

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.3546916,0.0413547/51.300635,0.0859753/@5...

1hr 35  by public transport

or 15 minutes by a car

Through open green farm land.

Yet ULEZ applies.

People seem to think all of greater London is a city centre. It isn't.

Wow you've managed to find an edge case that makes the ULEZ expansion look silly. Best scrap the whole thing. That's a good way to make policy decisions.

It’s only an edge case if you ignore things like Uber and bicycles mind…

I think Montyjohn might agree with :-

"I cannot understand any Inner or Central Londoner being opposed to ULEZ."

There is, after all, not just one London. Like other major conurbations, it has surrounding areas within its' remit which are nothing like the dense urban areas in the centre, whether in density or public transport allocation.

Wait until you figure out how many children you know have asthma and then have a rethink. Same with your own children ….you have young children….the benefit is for them.

A better way would be to apply some thought to it.

Place urban areas under Ulez, and leave the less trafficked places out of it.

The greater London wide approach was just a really lazy way to implement it.

Also, it's not an edge case. Public transport in outer London is poor and a lot of if is open.

Private Petrol and Diesel cars in London make up less than 20% of NOx (6% from petrols and 12% from diesels). Ulez will reduce this by a bit. The overall impact will be fairly small.

There are much much bigger sources like a gas stove. These are indoors so massively outweigh road side NOx that is constantly blowing away.

Out in the sticks in many parts of outer London Ulez won't have a measurable impact. There just aren't the traffic numbers or housing density in the first place.

So one things is bad, but another is worse? Tackling the bad thing, is still a positive outcome. In an ideal world everything should be targeted for best results. Many people, rich and poor, are not affected by gas stoves, unlike car pollution.

Perhaps a better use of your political capital might be to see if new mayoral candidates, are expanding public transport options.

Very good points I think. 

Just make a mental note though, on the off chance that Sadiq Khan announces some future scheme to discourage people in London from using gas stoves in their homes, that montyjohn would be all for it. 

A rather marked contrast, I suspect, from the line that other Tories would most likely take - especially his preferred candidate as London Mayor, given her vocal support for Donald Trump and the way gas stoves have been turned into a 'culture wars' issue by American conservatives already.

Maybe just look up the stats on air quality to figure it out?

one of the major pluses in the U.K. over the past 20 years is the quality of cars on the roads. The days of clapped out cars etc emptying their fumes into the air are long gone.

Get over it.

We're talking about outer London here, not the inner city.

Take a look at the image. I've drawn what I think would be a sensible ULEZ boundary in red.

If you think ULEZ should be outside the red boundary, then you think it should be the entire country.

If I had to guess, I would say only about 25% of the recent ULEZ expansion is within the red line.

All these arguments for ULEZ in inner London I'm onboard with. Believing these translate to outer London is nonsense. 

Send it to the Russians!

:P

This has mostly been achieved by regulating new cars. This is a sensible way of doing things. You let the new cars filter through as older cars will naturally drop out of use.

Like I say, in cities I can get on board with ULEZ. Rolling it out to low pollution areas however over reach.

I have no skin in this game. Both my cars are compliant so I have nothing to get over? But I can still point out bad policy which impacts people's finances for little gain.

A car, everyone knows, is a penis extension. How very dare you emasculate me, by suggesting my car is not fit for purpose.

Stoves would be an easy win, in the UK. They dont have the willy waving baggage. I expect that for many of the people complaining, e.g. men, they dont do much cooking. They simply object to woke interference.  A quick check of the Curries website, tells me a stove/oven combo starts at around ~£250. Far less that a car scrappage scheme.

In the US, with their 110v its harder to fit an electric stove, as some houses dont have wiring that can handle 50A+. (You can get gas heated tumble dryers, for the same reason.) That and the fact that the US grid is melting, due to lack of investment. Right wing renta mobs, seem to have jumped on the bandwagon. I dont know, nor do I expect they do, why they object to electric appliances.

Absolutely not. It's my pride and joy. Mine.

Well, yes.

Manchester had an attempt at it, but it's been paused. M1 & M6 had speed reductions specifically for pollution.

The area you have drawn may be leafy. However, the prevailing wind in the UK is from the west. Which is one reason why the east end of many cities have been poor. That's where the smoke has been blown. I expect that there may be boundaries that could be redrawn. But, it is simpler to say Greater London, rather than Road A up until the junction with Road B, all of Road C but not Road D which follows a similar route etc.

Manchester is another major city, comparable to central London in terms of traffic load.

I would say it's poor effort to make an emissions zone four times larger than it should be in terms of area because it's easier describe.

Is that correct? I thought I remembered reading that, for a petrol engined car, approximately 10% of CO2 emissions were on manufacture, 5% on disposal and 85% during use.

Do you drive a car?

Something which I think is a bit odd about this is that only cars handed in after 15th March will be sent, and only with the owners consent.

I assume the owner still get's their £2k either way, so why does it need their consent? And why not send the cars already traded in, but not crushed yet?

A pal of mine took in a Ukrainian and mid last year he took her to Kiev to see her family, whilst there he got talking to a guy that was basically taking old pickups and the like, slapping armour on them and sending them where they were needed. 

When my mate got home he promptly bought a 4x4 pickup with the intention of driving it over there, dropping it with the guy, picking up an armoured one and dropping that where it was needed then making his way home again. 

Unfortunately his cancer came back and he passed away a few weeks ago and never managed the trip. 

At a guess, I wonder if it is because some people are committed pacifists and wouldn’t engage with any scheme that contributes to a war effort. If the primary goal remains getting more polluting vehicles out of cities then asking for consent before sending them to Ukraine might be the most pragmatic option. Alternatively, but following similar logic, perhaps they might be thinking about the looming election and playing it safe by only sending any vehicles with consent.

I imagine the majority would be glad to give consent.