Sadiq Khan’s Ulez Expansion Had No Impact on Air Pollution, Study Finds
Sadiq Khan’s hated Ulez expansion across Greater London had no impact on air pollution, a new study by scientists at the University of Birmingham has found. The Mail has the story.
Sadiq Khan controversially expanded London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez) two years ago, at an estimated cost of up to £155 million.
Now, a breakthrough study suggests that fervent opposition at the time was well-judged.
Scientists at the University of Birmingham say the expansion of the Ulez in August 2023 had no significant impact on lowering air pollution.
In addition, London still faces air pollution levels well above international health-based guidelines, according to the experts.
Campaigners are now calling for Ulez to be scrapped altogether as it is saddling “Londoners with mountains of debt”.
“This is just further evidence that the Ulez expansion was about raising money rather than improving air quality,” Thomas Turrell, Transport and Environment spokesperson for City Hall Conservatives, told the Daily Mail.
“This is exactly what TfL’s own modelling showed, but yet again, Sadiq Khan is ignoring the evidence when it doesn’t suit his agenda.”
Damning figures released in 2023 showed how the Ulez expansion generated a whopping £5.3 million in its first week alone – with millions more raked in from drivers since.
Introduced in April 2019, ULEZ allows authorities to charge diesel and petrol vehicles £12.50 per day for operating in London if they are not compliant with emissions standards.
It uses a network of cameras that snap a photo of a vehicle’s plates, which searches a database to check if it is compliant, and, if not, issues a fine to the owner.
Ulez was intended to reduce vehicle emissions in some of London’s most polluted areas, but the decision to expand it to areas where traffic is less dense two years ago proved controversial.
It means the Ulez now applies to all 32 London boroughs, covering over 1,500 square kilometres (580 sq miles) and around nine million people. The zone pushes right up to the borders of surrounding counties including Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire.
The new University of Birmingham study focused on two harmful pollutants called nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and PM2.5 – which refers to fine particles with a diameter 2.5 micrometers or less, invisible to the naked eye. …
According to the findings, there was a 19.6% reduction in NO2 at roadside sites in central London within three months of Ulez originally being introduced in 2019.
Meanwhile, nitrogen oxides (NOx) – the wider group of toxic gases to which NO2 belongs – fell by 28.8% in the same period for the same area.
However, no significant impact was detected on NO2 or NOx levels following the Ulez expansion in August 2023.
What’s more, PM2.5 pollution across the whole of London has not significantly fallen over the entire period – not just since 2023.
Unfortunately, NO2 and PM 2.5 (fine particles that can enter into our lungs) pollution in London remains well above guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Worth reading in full.
Seems like a good moment to remind ourselves of the historical picture here:
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Any reason why website is very slow today – is maintenance still on going?
It is undoubtedly slow.
Maybe Starmer told the internet service provider to limit access to the Daily Sceptic.
I wouldn’t put it past the current regime.
I would contend that the purpose of rules by governing authority is first, an exercise of power to show the governed that the rulers can rule, second to raise money and a distance third whatever is nominally claimed to be the purpose of the rule.
I guess ULEZ comes under the heading of ‘nudge strategy’. It’s deeply immoral. ‘Old diesel cars are killing our kids through pollution!’ – but, if you pay extra, it’s fine to pollute? If they really believed that old diesel cars were killing children, they would ban them outright. Still, I think we need to be prepared for more such ‘tiered’ approaches in future.
Good point. And if you have a vintage car, which is even dirtier and smellier to run, you’re exempt too.
In other news, scientists have claimed water flows downhill.
Are there any decent people with the surname ‘Khan’, or is just a coincidence because it’s such a common ( Pakistani? ) name? We could probably say the same of ‘Mohammed’ too. That teen psycho who’s just been sent down for murdering Harvey Willgoose also has both those names. I just get negative vibes whenever I hear them now because there’s usually something bad that transpires. More bad Khans;
”Circled is Pro Palestine MP Ayoub Khan
This photo was taken around 8 years ago at Urban Gardens in Telford
To his left is “solicitor” Aqeeb Khan. Aqeeb has been linked to forcing girls to cut and sell drugs. He uses the solicitor firm as a front. He also married a 15 year old in Pakistan
His brother Aqeel impregnated a 13 year old and was exposed in Tommy documentary
In the white robes is Gulfraz Khan aka Bugsy. He was confronted by Tommy in the first Rape of Britain documentary for trafficking children
Centre of photo is celebrity Islamist lawyer and dickhead Akhmed Yakoob.”
https://x.com/theworldofmomus/status/1981077043774145009
From the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, a more nuanced and rounded take on the urban air-quality issue that supposedly underlies Ulez…
https://wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/news/does-air-pollution-kill-40000-people-each-year-uk/
“…There are huge uncertainties surrounding all the measures of impacts of air pollution, with inadequate knowledge replaced by substantial doses of expert judgement. These uncertainties should be better reflected in the public debates.
In addition, the situation in the UK is not what we would usually think of as a ‘crisis’. It can still be good to seek improvements in air quality, but only provided these are based on a careful analysis of the costs per life-year saved.”
Well call me shocked. How much has the little Khant spent on replacement cameras and posts. Tomorrow I shall go into the forbidden zone – in my non-compliant car – where there are trees everywhere, fields, a former WW2 fighter base now used for gliding and some nice person cut the camera down months and months ago.
Of course it hasn’t. It’s a revenue raiser which is also intended to force poorer drivers off the roads in order to reduce car usage.
So what are theWHO’s “guidelines” which are probably ridiculously, impractably low?
Bollox to the WHO. A fraudulent globalist money pit.
It would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad.
Ruled by idiots.
Yes, but it’s great for his EGO. and that’s what matters most, innit…
Who pays him? No, I don’t mean his mayoral salary (higher than the Prime Minister), but his membership of that elite coterie that enforce “clean air” bans in towns and cities, while increasing slow-moving and stationary traffic through lowered speed restrictions and “traffic calming” measures.
London isn’t alone (but for automated enforcement through cameras), right across Europe there are many similar schemes, based on the same Euro standard level of compliance.
The little khant is Chairman of the C40 Cities Project so he has a big input into all this Orwellian nonsense.
Whoops !!
University of Birmingham faces potential closure after a P45 deluge.
It was only ever about raising money and exercising power over individuals. Newer vehicles are cleaner than the old ones. You could just wait for the older vehicles to age and leave our roads altogether over time. Why go to all the expense of enforcing charges on those people who cannot afford a replacement?
There must surely come a point when the number of drivers paying the charge is too small to sustain the scheme. Unless, of course, Khan has some follow-up scheme planned, using the same infrastructure, but charging according to different criteria. I wouldn’t put it past him.
…and the name of that scheme? Road charging.
Otherwise, how do you explain the blocking off of side streets, such that traffic is concentrated onto major roads, already lined with ANPR cameras?
Khan isn’t the instigator (that would be to give him “credit” he doesn’t deserve), just an obedient servant. As are some of the “scientists” at Imperial College who produced the “Up in the Air” report a decade ago.