ULEZ expansion to proceed in London after High Court challenge fails - RAC reaction

Reacting to this morning's High Court ruling, RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said:

"Following today’s ruling, we encourage the Mayor and the Government to get around the table and take a more strategic and unified approach to introducing the new zone. Everybody wants cleaner air, but the scale of the challenge of getting many more people into ULEZ-compliant vehicles cannot be underestimated. A Freedom of Information request we made to the DVLA showed there could be up to 700,000 cars in the Greater London area that don’t conform to ULEZ standards, and this figure does not include those drivers from outside the capital who use their vehicles to commute into the Greater London area.

“While the principle of cleaning up London’s air is the right one, it has come at a time where drivers can ill afford to replace their vehicles during a cost-of-living crisis. This is being made by worse by new evidence which shows drivers are having to pay far more than they should have to purchase a compliant vehicle on the second-hand car market. We’d very much like to see additional support given to certain key workers, both inside the capital and in neighbouring counties, who depend on their vehicles to help them switch to cleaner ones as affordably as possible.”