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London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ)


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Today central London becomes an ultra low emission zone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47815117

There is an online checker for your vehicle.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/check-your-vehicle-35896

From 25th October 2021 the zone will be extended to the area within the north and south circular roads.

My TR4A is exempt from the LEZ (Low Emission Zone) charge and T-charge because it is in the historic vehicle class. With regard to the new ULEZ zone here is the extract from the exemptions page and the link

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/discounts-and-exemptions

"Historic vehicles

You can apply to stop paying vehicle tax if your vehicle was built more than 40 years ago. This date moves forward on a 40-year rolling system. Assuming the rules stay the same, when the ULEZ launches in April 2019, vehicles built before 1979 will be eligible to apply for historic vehicle tax class.

All vehicles that have a historic vehicle tax class will be exempt from the ULEZ. This tax class excludes any vehicle used commercially (for example, coffee vans or street food vans).

In line with the existing LEZ discount all vehicles registered before 1 January 1973 will be exempt from the ULEZ, regardless of commercial use or otherwise.

If your vehicle meets the above criteria and is registered in the UK, it is automatically exempt and you don't need to register with us. If your vehicle meets the above criteria but is registered outside the UK, you are also exempt, but will need to register with us. Details on how you can register will be available closer to the time."

My TR is also FIVA registered but I only did that in case of problems with officials when motoring abroad.

Unfortunately the BBC and newspaper headlines and articles omit to mention the historic vehicle exemptions. It is all in the fine print as usual...

Keith

 

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Just did the check on both my classics (1935, & 1956)  both are "historic vehicles" & both would have to pay in the ULEZ, but not in the LEZ which contradicts the statement above in blue.

Bob.

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1 hour ago, Lebro said:

Just did the check on both my classics (1935, & 1956)  both are "historic vehicles" & both would have to pay in the ULEZ, but not in the LEZ which contradicts the statement above in blue.

Bob.

Yes Bob, I have done the same online check with the same result but read the small print below the result:-

"This checker only checks the emissions status of the vehicle - it does not take into account any exemption or discount that may apply "

The devil is in the detail so the statement in blue in my original post above gives the exemption so your cars are exempt. Not very clear at all I admit

Keith

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Some of us don't have an option, although I mostly drive away from central London!

The extension in a couple of years time to the north and south circulars will cause a lot of hardship. Until about 6 months ago it was barely known about. There is no residents exemption like the congestion charge and small businesses will be hit. My eldest daughter runs a small dance and gymnastics company and also mentors autistic children outside of central London. A couple of years ago she invested in a small diesel SUV as she needs to transport equipment. Diesel was still king and the ULEZ was not in sight let alone the proposed extension. She will just about finish paying for the vehicle from her (very) modest income in time to pay £12.50 every day she uses it and will own a valueless vehicle that no one in London or the surrounding area will want . A real dilemma to work out what she does. 

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28 minutes ago, RogerH said:

Hi Miles,

      sell the diesel when she can. Buy a Morris TRaveller.  This should be exempt and will increase in value.

 

Roger 

Good call

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I've a better idea boycott the charge en mass (bet it would not happen in France) and don't vote for the jokers who thought it up. I bet they all are exempt or have a fat eye watering salary from the public coffers work from home and live no where near these zones.

If there is one way to kill small business and town centres this is it; pay to drive in pay to park £25 before you by a coffee. Lots of perfectly good cars scrapped with more new cars required which cost the environment more to produce.

Better solution would be to let natural wastage and technology make people make the change with time. CAT 6 cars are cleaner than ever and lets face it electric is in its infancy with regard to range and being able to charge the dam thing once you get there.

Conclusion a way of councils ripping off Mr & Mrs average to spend on everything apart from the roads and decent public transport.

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It does seem confusing this extract below is from  tfl site . I checked my two cars 1965 and 68 a few days ago and it said exempt. Now today not exempt and need to pay . It may be I need to register to get exemption. 

Historic vehicles

You can apply to stop paying vehicle tax if your vehicle was built more than 40 years ago. This date moves forward on a 40-year rolling system. Assuming the rules stay the same, when the ULEZ launches in April 2019, vehicles built before 1979 will be eligible to apply for historic vehicle tax class.

All vehicles that have a historic vehicle tax class will be exempt from the ULEZ. This tax class excludes any vehicle used commercially (for example, coffee vans or street food vans).

In line with the existing LEZ discount all vehicles registered before 1 January 1973 will be exempt from the ULEZ, regardless of commercial use or otherwise.

If your vehicle meets the above criteria and is registered in the UK, it is automatically exempt and you don't need to register with us. If your vehicle meets the above criteria but is registered outside the UK, you are also exempt, but will need to register with us. Details on how you can register will be available closer to the time.

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16 hours ago, RogerH said:

Hi Miles,

      sell the diesel when she can. Buy a Morris TRaveller.  This should be exempt and will increase in value.

 

Roger 

That would be my solution too but without blacked out windows and wide wide wheels, suspect the TRaveller would not be 'gangsta' enough!

Seriously though, looking at getting rid of the car soonish but my daughter will take a financial hit. Confident I know who is going to fill that hole but equally confident Mr Khan is not going to compensate me.

As for the rest of the fleet, my aged Boxster (which is utterly reliable and still 'fun') is caught so may have to go, but our not quite so aged Mitsubishi Space Wagon which owes us nothing, is worth about £500 but just goes on and on is exempt! Hang on....if I could black out the windows, etc., I may have a solution...

Miles

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Interesting subject.

somy TR6 is exempt, as is my 1975 Honda CB360 cafe racer !

both Ducati’s meet the bike Euro criteria, the Alpina is stated to be Euro 6 compkiant but comes up as not on the checker.

anyone know how to ‘inform’ the dvla that the car is compliant?

wonder if Amita counts as ULEZ :-)

steve

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I'm confused by this new charge. It seems that the aim to to reduce harmful emissions, if this is the case why can we choose to pay for the right to pollute these areas. To my way of thinking the decision should have been made that all vehicles that don't comply are banned from these areas with no exception. By having a charge to skip the rule it smacks to me of being a way to earn revenue for the local authority in the name of improving air quality. Perhaps I'm too much of  a sceptic. Finally, as with many of these types of schemes, the richer members of society can afford to pay to break rules and the poorer members suffer.

Rant over, i feel better now.

Tim

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Hi Tim,

I agree with you.

However stopping everything in it's tracks overnight (with a years notice!!) would cause chaos.

At the moment people can choose to pay up or stay out.  Those that pay up will not want to do it for long. They can't easily put their prices up for the transport as they will go out of business.

In the meantime the GLA gather funds that hopefully will be used correctly.

This time next year there should be a noticeable difference in air quality - maybe. 

What bugs me is that the GLA want clean air in London but are happy to increase the air traffic at Heathrow.

The prevailing wind will blow this extra muck straight at the ULEZ.

 

Roger

 

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Roger, there was a great study done 15+ years ago looking at NOx and particulate matter. They put up sensors every few hundred meters from Trafalgar Square all the way out to LHR and down between the two runways and beyond. The lowest level of those pollutants measured anywhere was between the runways. The best bit was that it was partly funded by an anti-aircraft lobby group. The study said the best way to clean up pollution around LHR was to get rid of all the diesel trucks operating in and around the airport, leave the planes alone. The report was buried as the facts did not support the hypothesis. Haha.

Mick

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3 hours ago, timhum said:

I'm confused by this new charge. It seems that the aim to to reduce harmful emissions, if this is the case why can we choose to pay for the right to pollute these areas. To my way of thinking the decision should have been made that all vehicles that don't comply are banned from these areas with no exception.

Tim

Setting aside my scepticism as to the real motives behind the scheme, it could be argued that the approach adopted is the best way to achieve the health objectives whilst avoiding the chaos that Roger rightly says would result from an outright ban with limited notice.

Some will immediately 'upgrade their vehicles' - by which GLA means buy one that is compliant (not retrofit some suitable filter as my daughter was led to believe). Other residents will eventually tire of paying £12.50 every time they use their car, particularly within the extended zone, or more likely the penalties of £160 (or £80 if paid within 14 days), and then 'upgrade' their vehicles. In the meantime, GLA will no doubt make the criteria for exemption more challenging and increase the fee and penalties. This in turn will result in more upgrades to less damaging vehicles. Or so the theory might go.

On the other hand, the charge may just become an additional cost of motoring and not just for the affluent with limited impact on vehicles used or pollution reduction. Many domestic vehicles are only used at the weekend. I believe - but stand to be corrected - that the congestion zone is no less congested than it used to be before the charge was introduced. The GLA will reap a large income which will be used to defray the cost of the cameras and all the other things that will be needed all over the place to catch offenders. If there is anything left over, they could perhaps invest in improving the infrastructure for charging electric vehicles which might be a positive contribution to changing driving behaviours.

Miles

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I agree that  phased approach makes the most sense from a practical point of view. My concern is that to get out of  paying the charge the replacement car as to be post 2015, Euro 6 or petrol. The cost to change will be high and penalise those on lower incomes who can't afford a newer vehicle and will just have to stump up the daily fee.  Those who are more well off are likely to replace their cars more often, charge the cost to expenses or pay it out of 'loose change'. 

It's a difficult  issue to solve or come up with a sensible suggestion. Perhaps it should start with taxis, commercial vehicles and buses who can all set their costs off against tax, measure the result and then make a decision about the next course of action should it be necessary. 

Thank goodness I don't need to drive into London.

Tim

 

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Hi Tim,

   two years ago the taxi drivers were up in arms because they were told to renew the fleet. This is on-going.

Although we have some 'old smoky' buses outside this initial area things will have to change when it is expanded to the N/S circular. The city buses are quite good.

Everybody will be affected in some way with improvements to the environment, all over the country.

 

Roger 

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All over Europe you find several approaches to control the behavior of the (us) people :

From one point of view I accept this as necessary means to "save the world"

From another point of view I wonder, if
- sometimes the cost is higher then the duties (German Maut for trucks was said to gain a much higher net income for the Gouvernement than actually resulted - nobody publishes real figures openly - but I see more trucks on the Autobahn then ever before)

- some time in the future nobody will remember, why this measure was taken and "we" are left with a lot of duties, nobody needs anymore. But skipping them would result in a lot of employees without job (whos job was to perform all these tasks) . we have a lot of old taxes, that make no sense anymore..

But like all the times before, we (the people) will arrange ourselves with all these things…. like mercury-filled energy saving lamps that now, since LEDs gained more power, are just another waste of resources and pollution….

 

Regards, Johannes

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Did a few studies of this sort of pollution issue in the past and the choice so an interesting one.

1) reduce diesel thereby reducing NOx and particulates and improve health near the roads but increase CO2 as you change to less efficient petrol and therefore increase global warming decreasing health in a wider world

2) keep diesel but add mitigation systems that reduce NOx and particulates and reduce CO2. Also need to consider the energy used to make the new improved diesel cars and the pollution that causes!

3) go electric and generate the electricity from:

 A) fossil fuels, convenient but polluting locally and globally

B) nuclear, convenient and potentially very poluting

C) renewable, insufficient capacity of we all drove electric so would need some of a or b

Or use a bike!

So really quite complex. 

Tim

 

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So we all go electric ... but where will the Government get the car tax revenue from and where will it get the VAT and other taxes from the pump slales from?

My guess is road pricing...... but then that would mean heavy daily charges especially in big towns ....... but they would not do that, would they. I mean who would think of all that effort to charge each car as one drives into town. The general public would have none of that, surely.

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What's the betting that when we all go electric (that is if there is enough to go round) there will be a new tax to pay for all the extra generating capacity or a battery disposal tax which by the way the batteries are only expected to last between 5-7 years can't see it been good for the environment replacing a car in that time frame.

Up here in the frozen north can't say I've seen more than 10 charging points.

As said the poorer folk will pay the price. Its nothing to do with air quality rather lets dream a new scheme to fleece the motorist I bet that less than 1% of any charge gets used to save the planet.

Best solution cut the global population after all you can't keep putting donkeys in the same field or they will all starve to death. 

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We should be worried by all this electric car Bullsh*t.  The British government can't even handle Brexit after over two years. :unsure:

Theresa May is still begging on her knees for our EU masters to grant us yet more time to dither!!  :lol:

Tom.

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24 minutes ago, PodOne said:

What's the betting that when we all go electric (that is if there is enough to go round) there will be a new tax to pay for all the extra generating capacity or a battery disposal tax which by the way the batteries are only expected to last between 5-7 years can't see it been good for the environment replacing a car in that time frame.

Up here in the frozen north can't say I've seen more than 10 charging points.

As said the poorer folk will pay the price. Its nothing to do with air quality rather lets dream a new scheme to fleece the motorist I bet that less than 1% of any charge gets used to save the planet.

Best solution cut the global population after all you can't keep putting donkeys in the same field or they will all starve to death. 

Hi Andy,

Prof Pete C was always complaining that come the winter we may well run out of generating power.  It is often a very close thing.

If electric cars take off then were indeed will all the extra power come from - it doesn;t grow on trees you know,

It gets worse. Can you imagine in a big city 100's of cars on charge at the same time. Multiply this by all the towns/cities shopping centres - that is a lot of current

 

Roger

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Roger,

Can you honestly believe that it is possible / practicable to "allow" electric car ownership on a one-for-one basis with current car ownership? Or will car ownership be restricted, by cost perhaps to a few, with public transport for most people?

 

Alan

Edited by barkerwilliams
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