The Mayor of London is planning to expand ULEZ to cover the whole of London. That means small businesses and commuters who drive into the city could end up with a bill of more than £370 — every single month.
Councillor Tim Oliver, the Leader of Surrey County Council (SCC), is leading a coalition of five councils - the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Harrow, and Hillingdon - with a judicial review challenging TfL and the Mayor over the proposed expansion of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) that would include all of Greater London up to the administrative boundary with the boroughs and districts in Surrey from August 2023.
TfL's own figures show that people from outside London make around 1 million journeys a day to, from or within London. This significant volume of people who rely on being able to travel into the capital by car will be detrimentally impacted by Sadiq Khan's measures, and have not been provided a say on it either at the ballot box or through a consultation.
SCC's legal challenge is being made on five grounds:
- Failure to comply with relevant statutory requirements.
- Unlawful failure to consider expected compliance rates in outer London.
- The proposed scrappage scheme was not consulted upon.
- Failure to carry out any cost benefit analysis.
- Inadequate consultation and/or apparent predetermination arising from the conduct of the consultation.
SCC is committed to delivering a greener future for residents, however, there has been a lack of discussion and consideration given to these proposals by the Mayor of London. To date, SCC's requests for due consideration to be given to mitigation have not been acknowledged, let alone acted upon. This is why the county council resorted to legal proceedings to stand up for Surrey residents, with the High Court granting permission for a judicial review on April 12th 2023.
This permission was granted on the grounds Sadiq Khan failed to comply with statutory requirements and on the question of whether the Mayor properly considered the previous “buffer zone” approach as a material consideration in relation to the scrappage scheme. The hearing is likely to be in the week commencing Monday 3 July or shortly after.
Commenting, Tim Oliver said:
“This is good news and I’m pleased that our challenge to the Mayor of London regarding ULEZ is proceeding. The impact on Surrey’s residents and businesses has been ignored by the Mayor and it’s frankly disgraceful that it’s taken legal proceedings to have our voices heard.
“Our consultation response in July 2022 clearly highlighted that the Mayor’s decision failing to include Surrey residents in any scrappage scheme was unacceptable, and proposed a number of other recommendations to help mitigate both the financial and potential environmental impacts of the expansion. Our concerns have not been addressed by The Mayor.
“We remain committed to delivering a greener future, but it must be done in a practical and sustainable way. We will now await the findings of the Judicial Review.”
