High Court Rules in Favour of ULEZ Expansion

The expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) across London can go ahead after the High Court ruled it lawful. Five Conservative-led councils had challenged the Labour mayor of London’s plans to charge older, more polluting vehicles £12.50 a day from 29 August.

Following this judgment, the Mayor has confirmed that the expansion will go ahead on 29 August as planned, bringing cleaner air to five million more Londoners.

The GLA has published a press release with further details.

The full judgment is available on the High Court website.

The Mayor has always said that the decision to expand the ULEZ London-wide was difficult and not something he takes lightly – and he continues to do everything possible to address concerns Londoners may have.

The ULEZ is a highly targeted scheme aimed at taking the most polluting vehicles off the roads. Nine out of ten cars seen driving regularly in outer London on an average day are already ULEZ compliant and will not pay a penny when the zone expands, while still benefitting from cleaner air.

For the small proportion of non-compliant vehicles the Mayor has introduced a £110million scrappage scheme to help low-income and disabled Londoners and small businesses. The Mayor has always listened to concerns raised by Londoners and so from Monday 31 July the scheme expands further so that every family in receipt of child benefit in London (more than 870,000 people) and every small business is eligible for thousands of pounds in financial support if they have a non-compliant vehicle.

The Mayor has made tackling London’s toxic air a priority since taking office. Air pollution has serious and life-limiting risks on physical and mental health and is linked to asthma, cancer, heart disease and dementia among other conditions.

Around 4,000 Londoners die each year prematurely due to causes linked to air pollution, with the greatest number of premature deaths in outer London – and every outer London borough exceeds the WHO’s recommended guidelines for NO2 and PM2.5 pollution. Mayoral policies, such as the central London ULEZ, have helped reduce the number of children admitted to hospital with air pollution related asthma and other respiratory diseases by 30% in 2017 to 2019, compared to the period between 2014 to 2016.