A borough council in East London has written to the capital’s mayor asking to be included in any pilot road user charging project.

Hackney Council’s mayor Philip Glanville’s letter to Sadiq Khan welcoming proposal to extend London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to cover the whole of Greater London, but says the council believes the proposal needs to now include the introduction of stricter emission standards. “We would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the case for significant traffic reduction through road user charging and put Hackney forward as a lead local authority in any future pilot projects,” it adds.

And it goes on, “Although the ULEZ scheme does make progress towards reducing traffic related emissions and damage to populations exposed to poor air quality, it fails to proportionally benefit Inner and Central London where most of the people living in areas of exceedance live.

“Historically Hackney pushed to be a part of the original ULEZ and for more rapid expansion of the zone which we have welcomed at each stage. In particular, the scheme does not contain any proposals designed to progress the Central London zero emission zone promised for 2025 in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy….

“Hackney welcomes the consultation on the introduction of distance-based road user charging but believes the pace of change needs to be much faster. This is especially important in the context of the acknowledged need to reduce traffic in London by 27% by the end of the decade. We support the use of such a scheme to achieve a ‘just transition’ to a net zero carbon London by 2030 and propose that Hackney be made a pilot area for the introduction of a road user charging scheme as well as the introduction of zero emission pilot(s) such as an extension of the Shoreditch ULEV Streets zone, which we were pleased to welcome you to a few years ago.”

(Picture – Yay Images)