Sadiq Khan’s Ulez failed to lower pollution levels, a study has found.

Sadiq Khan controversially expanded London‘s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) two years ago, at an estimated cost of up to £155 million. The Daily Mail has the story.

Now, a breakthrough study suggests that fervent opposition at the time was well–judged. 

Scientists at the University of Birmingham say the expansion of the ULEZ in August 2023 had no significant impact on lowering air pollution.

In addition, London still faces air pollution levels well above international health–based guidelines, according to the experts. 

Campaigners are now calling for ULEZ to be scrapped altogether as it is saddling ‘Londoners with mountains of debt’. 

‘This is just further evidence that the ULEZ expansion was about raising money rather than improving air quality,’ Thomas Turrell AM, Transport & Environment spokesperson for City Hall Conservatives, told the Daily Mail.  

‘This is exactly what TfL’s own modelling showed, but yet again, Sadiq Khan is ignoring the evidence when it doesn’t suit his agenda.’ 

Damning figures released in 2023 showed how the ULEZ expansion generated a whopping £5.3 million in its first week alone – with millions more raked in from drivers since. 

Introduced in April 2019, ULEZ allows authorities to charge diesel and petrol vehicles £12.50/day for operating in London if they are not compliant with emissions standards.

It uses a network of cameras that snap a photo of a vehicle’s plates, which searches a database to check if it is compliant, and, if not, issues a fine to the owner. 

ULEZ was intended to reduce vehicle emissions in some of London’s most polluted areas, but the decision to expand it to areas where traffic is less dense two years ago proved controversial.

It means the ULEZ now applies to all 32 London boroughs, covering over 1,500 square kilometres (580 sq miles) and around nine million people. The zone pushes right up to the borders of surrounding counties including Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. 

The new University of Birmingham study focused on two harmful pollutants called nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and PM2.5 – which refers to fine particles with a diameter 2.5 micrometers or less, invisible to the naked eye. 

NO2 can lead to health issues like inflamed airways while aggravating existing heart and lung diseases, while PM2.5 can enter the lungs and then the bloodstream, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs. 

The team studied air quality data captured hourly at 124 sites across London following the introduction of ULEZ in April 2021, and its major expansion in August 2023. 

They also created a computer model for assessing the direct impact of ULEZ on these pollutants in the Greater London area. 

According to the findings, there was a 19.6 per cent reduction in NO2 at roadside sites in central London within three months of ULEZ originally being introduced in 2019. 

Meanwhile, nitrogen oxides (NOx) – the wider group of toxic gases to which NO2 belongs – fell by 28.8 per cent in the same period for the same area. 

However, no significant impact was detected on NO2 or NOx levels following the ULEZ expansion in August 2023.

What’s more, PM2.5 pollution across the whole of London has not significantly fallen over the entire period – not just since 2023. 

Unfortunately, NO2 and PM 2.5 (fine particles that can enter into our lungs) pollution in London remains well above guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Read the full story here.