TfL have seized more than 1,400 cars in the last 12 months from those who dare to defy Khan’s crippling £12.50-a-day ULEZ toll. Khan has been revving up the so-called success of the scheme, despite its first report admitting it’s impossible to gauge its true effectiveness—and even then, the numbers were nothing short of a car crash. Now the scheme is choking the poorest the hardest, with TfL exhaustively raking in over £25 million through relentless bailiff action…

Those unwilling—or unable—to pay the extortionate fines are being left in the dust, with their cars clamped, towed away, and sold off. In the last year alone, nearly 800 of those cars were sold, rolling in £710,000 cash for TfL. Still, unpaid ULEZ fines continue to fuel TfL debt. Neil Garratt, City Hall Conservatives Leader slammed the scheme:

“Last month I forced Khan to reveal that TfL now has £376 million in unpaid ULEZ fines – shockingly that’s 83% of TfL’s total bad debt. Today we find out that they’ve recouped just 6% of it. We constantly hear from Sadiq that TfL desperately needs more taxpayer money to make the numbers add up – perhaps if he wasn’t building up so much bad debt and building his budget on fantasy economics he wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Khan’s London continues to go up in smoke…

Today is the one-year anniversary of Khan’s hated ULEZ expansion – forcing all 32 London boroughs to cough up £12.50 to drive if they happened to have one of the 700,000 non-compliant cars. The tax collects a whopping £715,000 a day from motorists…

Late last month City Hall pushed out an unauthored taxpayer-funded report claiming that emissions had fallen “drastically” thanks to the expansion – it showed roadside Nitrogen Dioxide concentrations were a measly 1.93% lower on average since ULEZ’ expansion. Quite the reward for an anti-worker tax…

Buried in the middle of the report is the admission that it doesn’t measure either the expansion itself or ULEZ in isolation:

“The analysis for the ULEZ shows the impacts of not just the ULEZ and its expansions, but all of the Mayor’s policies to reduce emissions from transport, including those within the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. As such, it is not straightforward to isolate the impact of the ULEZ and its expansions. Therefore the analysis for the ULEZ can be seen to show the impacts of not just the ULEZ and its expansions, but of all the Mayor’s policies to reduce emissions from transport.”

On top of that new analysis claims ULEZ is responsible for £875 million of the total revenue generated by these zones since 2019. Seeing as it cost an extra £500 million to roll out, that’s a pretty hefty price tag. Now non-compliant cars are being forced off the road, Khan will have to think of a new money grab. Have no fear – pay per mile charging is on the way…

Sadiq Khan’s wallet-hitting ULEZ expansion cost the taxpayer a whopping £500 million, and despite the spin that emissions are “dramatically” lower, the first report shows that roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations in outer London were just 4.4% lower since the scheme. No need to know the value for money when others are paying for it…

Still, the report tries to spin the abysmal figures, claiming harmful emissions were “21% lower” overall following the expansion. Though the buried ‘context’ section in the report shows the data includes “all of the Mayor’s policies to reduce emissions,” not just the ULEZ expansion. It even admits that it’s impossible to “isolate the impact of the ULEZ and its expansion.” Even when claims of success are impossible to verify, they can’t produce good numbers…

 Susan Hall AM slammed the revelations:

“From day one, we were absolutely clear that expanding the ULEZ was going to cost the taxpayer a huge sum and hammer the poorest drivers, whilst making very little difference to air quality in outer London. Despite the Mayor’s outrageous attempts to spin the figures, we can see the effect of the expansion on air quality was minimal.”

A kick in the teeth for those having to fork up the £12.50 daily fee… 

The row between the Tories and Labour over Sadiq Khan’s plans to implement a pay-per mile policy in London continues. Labour have today referred the Tories to the CPS for the below tweet, which they call a “lie“. Some good photoshopping work from the team Susan on display…

Labour are trying very hard to convince voters that Khan won’t implement the policy. The rebuttal to that claim comes from… Khan’s own book:

“We need to go further. And we intend to. We have plans to make public transport better and more appealing, plans for a further £3 million mass-tree-planting initiative, and plans to introduce a new, more comprehensive road-user charging system, to be implemented by the end of the decade at the latest.“

On top of his fervent support for the idea, Khan has committed TfL to “investigate proposals for the next generation of road user charging” in a legally binding transport strategy document. The Tories say of Labour’s CPS referral: “Londoners will see through this; Sadiq Khan’s record of dishonesty speaks for itself.” It would be hardly the first broken promise – Khan said he had no plans to expand ULEZ in 2021 and then did it anyway…

Hat-tip: James Heale

For once, the Advertising Standards Authority has made a sound decision. They ruled last night that Sadiq Khan and his TfL misled Londoners with some claims about the benefits of the ULEZ, flouting the rules three times via radio and newspaper adverts. These claims made by Khan are not the whole truth: “One of London’s most polluted spots is inside your car,” “most air pollution deaths occur in Outer London,” and overstating ULEZ’s impact that it resulted in “almost a halving of levels of nitrogen dioxide”. Guido could have told you that months ago…

Here’s one advert to watch out for – don’t be fooled by Khan’s propaganda:

While ASA ruled these ads were “misleading” and “unsubstantiated”, the ads are not banned from future use, though TfL’s future Ulez ads will have to include the data sources for claims on its effectiveness.

City Hall Conservatives Tony Devenish said:

“Sadiq Khan and TfL have been caught out making misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of ULEZ to Londoners. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Sadiq Khan’s own report said the ULEZ expansion would do little to tackle air pollution. Sadiq Khan has a history of making misleading and false claims. Afterall, he told us he wouldn’t expand ULEZ to outer London but then did exactly that. Sadiq Khan can’t be trusted. He doesn’t deserve another four years as mayor. Eight years is more than enough.”

Just more hot air from Khan exaggerating the benefits of his money-grabbing scheme…

Update: 

Susan Hall tells Guido:

“It is shameful that Sadiq Khan has consistently misled Londoners about his ULEZ expansion. It is nothing but a tax grab which only has a negligible effect on air quality. We know his staff leant on scientists to change their findings and he is taking hundreds of millions from the poorest Londoners. I will scrap the ULEZ expansion on day one of my Mayoralty, no ifs no buts.”

Looks like Khan’s love-in with the EU is going through a rough patch as European governments are furious with TfL for wrongly fining hundreds of thousands of EU citizens for driving the in ULEZ area. One poor Frenchman was wrongly fined £25,000 for driving in ULEZ…

Five EU states accused Khan’s TfL of illegally obtaining names and addresses, resulting in 320,000 penalties since 2021. Sleuthing Belgian MP Michael Freilich said “this is possibly one of the largest privacy and data breaches in EU history, but so far no concrete action has been taken while responsibilities are being shunted on to driver.” No amount of smoke can get Khan out of this one…

Even the LibDems have blasted Khan, calling for an immediate investigation as this may damage the city’s reputation. Susan Hall weighed in, telling Guido:

“These are incredibly serious allegations that must be investigated urgently. There can be absolutely no justification for illegally obtaining people’s private information to enforce Sadiq Khan’s unfair ULEZ expansion.

“It is telling that even Sadiq Khan’s friends in the EU are saying he can’t treat drivers like cash cows. As Mayor, I will scrap his ULEZ expansion on day one and ensure these allegations are looked into.”

Since Brexit, the UK is banned from automatic access to personal details of EU residents, so Khan’s indiscriminate ULEZ tax grab from EU citizens violated the law. Khan can raise the EU flag all he wants, this isn’t going to get him in the good books…