London car scrappage scheme announced ahead of ULEZ expansion
Grants not enough, say councils
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced details of a new £110m scrappage scheme to enable Londoners to upgrade or replace high-polluting cars ahead of the expansion of the capital’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) in August.
The scheme will make available up to £5,000 to low-income residents of the expanded ULEZ, with the full £5,000 sum available to eligible applicants scrapping a wheelchair-accessible car or van.
For standard cars, motorists may receive up to £2,000 for scrapping their vehicle, with £1,000 available to motorcyclists.
Instead of the full sum, applicants may instead opt for a lower payment plus one or two adult rate bus and tram passes, which Transport for London (TfL) says are worth more than the payment alone.
In order to be eligible for the scheme, drivers must live in one of the 32 London boroughs (or the City of London) due to fall under ULEZ rules and can only apply to scrap a vehicle that does not meet ULEZ emissions standards.
At present, only petrol cars that meet Euro 4 emissions standards (introduced in 2006) can escape the £12.50 daily ULEZ charge, with drivers of diesel-powered cars only exempt if the engine complies with the Euro 6 vehicle emission rules, which came into force in September 2015.
ULEZ checker: Is your car exempt from the Ultra Low Emission Zone?
Applications for the grant are only open to those who have not already received a grant payment under a previous ULEZ car and motorcycle scrappage scheme.
Drivers applying for the current scheme must be receiving one or more of a list of benefits that includes universal credit, child tax credit and housing benefit (among others) and must also have been the registered keeper of the vehicle they plan on scrapping 12 months prior to the launch of the scrappage scheme (January 30, 2023).
As well as offering assistance to private motorists, the new scrappage scheme will see up to £9,500 made available to small businesses (up to 10 employees), sole traders and registered charities operating within the 32 boroughs.
For businesses scrapping a van, £5,000 will be available to put towards an emissions-compliant replacement, with £7,000 for those replacing a minibus.
For retrofitting either a van or minibus to make it ULEZ-compliant, £5,000 is also available, with respective grants of £7,500 and £9,500 for businesses replacing a van or minibus with an electric alternative.
In November 2022, Sadiq Khan confirmed that the ULEZ will be expanding to cover all of Greater London from August 29, 2023, citing the clean air benefits.
“Around 4,000 Londoners die prematurely each year because of long-term exposure to air pollution, with the greatest number of deaths in outer London boroughs,” he said.
“That’s why this expansion is so important — we need to clean the air for everyone.”
A report by Imperial College London commissioned by the mayor’s office found that in 2019 the equivalent of between 3,600 and 4,100 deaths in Greater London were estimated as being attributable to air pollution, and that the adoption of more stringent measures such as an expanded ULEZ would increase the life expectancy of a child born in 2013 by around six months.
Opposition from councils
The planned ULEZ expansion has not been without controversy, with widespread opposition from borough councils, five of which — Bexley, Bromley, Croydon Hillingdon and Harrow — have jointly vowed to “do everything in our power to stop it going ahead”.
Sutton and Harrow councils — Liberal Democrat and Conservative-led, respectively — have refused to sign the “Section 8” agreement allowing TfL to install cameras in the borough.
TfL may use its powers to simply override the opposition of councils to enable it to install two thirds of the necessary 2,750 CCTV cameras for the scheme without council permission.
Other councils including Sutton and fellow Liberal Democrat-led Kingston and Richmond, as well as the Labour boroughs of Barking and Dagenham & Redbridge, have said that the scheme does not provide enough compensation for motorists forced to change their vehicles as a result of the expanded ULEZ, especially given the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
“We would like to see the scheme delayed for at least a year to reflect the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on businesses and residents,” said the leader of Kingston council, Andreas Kirsch.
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