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Last September I got hold of some data from DfT about the potential impact of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) expansion. My view was that a lot of the angst towards the policy was overstated with a broadly similar proportion of Outer London drivers being affected as those Inner London households who have been living with ULEZ for many years.
In world of grown up governance the government and the Mayor of London would work together and ULEZ (or something like it) would be part of a wider strategic policy to tackle environmental and health related damage as well as encouraging adoption of less polluting vehicles. We don’t live in a world of grown up governance so the government has decided to weaponise ULEZ rather than to come up with a more positive set of policies. Is it perfect? Obviously not. Is it better than keeping the status quo? Probably. Could we see a more grown up approach to governing in the future? Hopefully.
Continue readingThe Mayor of London’s plan to extend London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to Outer London is causing great consternation but having looked at the criteria by which vehicles will be charged it seemed to me like the objections are over stating the real impact. Especially after I discovered that our 19 year old Ford Focus will be exempt.
So I wanted to try and understand the impact these proposals would have on car owners in London. To do that I needed to be able to:
- count vehicles registered to households according to their London Borough
- categorise them according to their fuel
- group them according to the year they were registered