Our response to the consultation on the new low emission zone
Soon after his election the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called for new proposals to urgently help tackle London’s lethal air pollution. The Mayor has already introduced the T-Charge in central London, bought forward the start date of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for central London to 8 April 2019 and announced a series of measures to clean up London’s bus fleet.
TfL are now consulting on detailed proposals for two further initiatives to improve London’s air. These involve:
Tightening the standards of the existing London-wide Low Emission Zone from 2020, which affects heavy vehicles – buses, coaches and HGVs and other heavy specialist vehicles
Expanding the ULEZ for light vehicles (cars, vans and motorcycles) from central London to inner London up to, but not including the North and South Circular roads in 2021 so that all vehicles in this area are subject to emissions standards
The full proposals can be found here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-3b/#our proposals
In Thurlow Park, they involve a new low emissions zone extending up to but not including the South Circular.
As your local Labour councillors, we have responded to the consultation calling on the zone to be wider, covering all of London rather than stopping at the South Circular.
Air quality is a very important issue for us and our residents. Thurlow Park ward straddles the South Circular and has a number of other strategically important roads that experience heave traffic, including Norwood Road and Lancaster Avenue.
These roads, and the streets leading off them, experience high volumes of cars, buses, lorries and vans. As a consequence, the air that residents living, working, walking and cycling in our ward, and especially on these roads, is damaging their lungs.
We are therefore very supportive of actions which TfL and the Mayor can take to tackle air pollution and welcome a large Ultra Low Emissions Zone. We agree with proposals that there should be tougher emissions standards, particularly given this will especially impact the heavy vehicles that we experience disproportionately.
We also support the expansion of the existing Low Emission Zone. However, we are very disappointed that it is being proposed to go only as far as the south circular. As shown by this map displaying data from the London Air website compiled by Kings College London, the South Circular is the worst road in our neighbourhood. It’s a residential road, and in just Thurlow Park goes past two schools and very near to two more.
On any given day, these homes and schools have around 15,000 vehicles driving east and a further 12,000 vehicles travelling west past their front doors, according to data collected by TfL which we have published here: http://thurlowparklabour.org/post/166566971597/progress-made-in-our-campaign-for-a-safer-south
Other pollution hotspots would be missed off the new zone too – in our ward, Norwood Road sees higher traffic and pollution, as do Robson Road, Rosendale Road, Lancaster Avenue and Croxted Road, for example, thanks to buses, delivery vehicles and other traffic.
The current proposals, up to and not including the South Circular, fail to take action on the road in the greatest need of action and does nothing to tackle the pollution hotspots south of this boundary. They create a situation which sees only half of our residents breathing cleaner air, while some of the worst affected areas see no change in regulation. We are also concerned that the new zone will push the most pollution traffic south as drivers of vehicles affected look for alternative routes that avoid the charge. We don’t want to see the southern half of the ward become a rat run for London’s most polluting traffic.
By extending the zone to cover the whole city, this scenario can be avoided. We would therefore like to see the new zone expanded to cover the whole of London, including the South Circular.
