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ROAD PRICING PLANS HIDDEN IN LBHF’s 2023 CONSULTATION… ·
At the end of 2023, LBHF’s draft Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) slipped out. It was out for public
consultation until 9 Feb 2024, but only highlighted in the weekly mailing to
residents on 12 Jan 2024. ·
And the (under-publicised) publicity material hid some
sinister intentions. i.e. We will conduct a feasibility study on further localised road user charging on strategic links or local areas alongside existing adopted regional and local policy. Conduct a feasibility assessment on road user charging by 2030. We will take all
necessary actions and fully support proposals to expedite geofencing… in areas of poor
air quality and high congestion. ·
A lot of big words. Reminds us of Ken Livingstone’s
bland manifesto commitment just to ‘explore’ a Congestion Charge? |
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WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? ·
It’s a no-brainer that you don’t conduct a study if you
have zero intention of going through with the plans. ·
As regards ‘feasibility’, the technology for road pricing has been in place for years. Former Transport
for London (TfL) boss Peter Hendy – now a Transport minister – confirmed it
was ready in 2006. Mayor Khan has looked at Singapore’s system as a model and
London is full of surveillance cameras. ·
As regards geofencing that they are keen
to rush in…. This is basically tracking vehicles moving in or out of a defined area, or being present in it. Communications technologies like GPS or 5G phone signals might be used. There is the potential for arbitrary local equivalents of the congestion charge on a fixed boundary, or variable boundaries depending on conditions. Mayor Khan has been very keen to get 5G communications devices onto street furniture such as bus shelters and lamp posts. Smart phone technology can already be linked to journey tracking and payments.
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LBHF – STEPPING STONES TOWARDS LOCAL ROAD PRICING · 500 air composition sensors are already in place in LBHF. Their supplier, Vortex, is part of a group whose interests coincidentally include a road pricing company and bailiffs. Vortex’s John Vinson wrote an article on how understanding local air conditions could lead to new ways of ‘managing’ traffic, The intrusive local pinpointing sounds like ULEZ on steroids. He noted (prophetically?): ... “…combining with other
data sources such as traffic information, it could become possible to develop user-specific charges, e.g.
you drive a Ford Mondeo 2.0l diesel which has a known particulate output
(based on DVLA information) and you want to drive into a city-centre location
at a specific time, on a specific day, it will cost that user £4.75, whereas
the same journey for a newer vehicle with lower particulate emissions might
cost £1.10 for the same journey, just one example of how air quality data
could be used in the future.” ·
As London’s air is getting cleaner and cleaner, you
have to ask why politicians come out with sudden hysteria claiming a ‘public
health emergency’? It’s funny that if London’s air is so filthy/toxic (as Mayor Khan
claims), why is he always urging people to walk and cycle in it? |
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LBHF – SUPPORTING MAYOR KHAN’S TRANSPORT POLICIES… ·
Mayor Khan got elected on a slogan ‘A Mayor for All
Londoners’. But his key policy document, the Mayor’s
Transport Strategy (MTS) is blatantly anti-motorist. Transport for London
(TfL) is bound by the Strategy to (high handedly) ensure that by 2041, 80% of
journeys made in Greater London are either by walking, cycling or public
transport. Motor vehicle journeys are to be pushed off the road.…. · LBHF updates a Local Implementation Plan (LIP), a transport plan for supporting the MTS. ·
The MTS feels that motorists pay too little for
road use in London and encourages money-raising measures such as road user charging or a workplace parking levy (‘a tax on going to work’). It notes that the Mayor
will work with London boroughs on setting up their own local road pricing
schemes (p96
or p49/163). LB Hackney
and the City
of London are already potentially involved. ·
LBHF’s draft AQAP
document was notably written for them by Poppy Lyle, a senior manager in
the Mayor’s GLA environment division. |
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There
have been denials that LBHF has been going for unpopular ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhoods’ that have been pushed (at
our expense) by Khan’s MTS. The
claims that they are just “Clean Air Neighbourhoods” wears thin when
the truth is revealed by a consultation webpage. Reference |
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WHAT IS TRANSPORT FOR LONDON UP TO BEHIND THE SCENES? ·
In 2021, before ULEZ was expanded on hyped “air quality”
grounds, Mayor Khan’s TfL explicitly looked for ‘New Revenue Sources”. They recommended lucrative ‘pay per kilometre’ road
pricing (p56)
– but in the short term went for expanding ULEZ as an easy option – despite
overwhelming public opposition. ·
Clues were given in the 2022 consultation, during
which ULEZ got almost all the coverage and the Mayor’s road pricing ambitions were conveniently much under-publicised. We can see why – the following
self-satisfied hype from TfL
is just insulting to our intelligence! “…further
action will be needed in the long-term to achieve the necessary levels of traffic and emissions reductions to continue
to improve Londoners’ health and to meet net
zero carbon targets to tackle the climate emergency. This may require the
introduction of London-wide road user
charging by 2030 at the latest,
as set out by an Element Energy analysis of a 2030 net zero target for London. The analysis notes that all scenarios
would benefit from London-wide road user charging being introduced as early as possible…”. ·
However, a ULEZ consultation document known as the
Jacobs Report also gives
the game away that the proposed scheme will “have a negligible beneficial
impact on carbon emissions in Greater London.” ·
The ‘necessary reductions’ that Mayor Khan wants are
27% of our motor vehicle journeys in
London and are based on a strange report
from the Element Energy consultancy [2022]. For some reason, the Mayor
insists on aiming for the ‘Net Zero’ fantasy
world target by 2030, 20 years ahead of national government. LBHF has also committed to the same flat earth target locally, which it
admits it cannot achieve without massive external subsidies. (For an expose
of Net Zero hype click here.) ·
Related to LBHF’s AQAP is the bizarre Net Zero 2030 Parking
Strategy. This is a money-making ruse that penalises parked vehicles with
their engines off, so have negligible emissions! LBHF are trying to massively increase
charges in breach of promises on cheaper parking and help with the cost of
living!!! ·
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HYPOCRISY ON HEALTH USED AS A COVER FOR DICTATORIAL POLICIES ·
In the shorter term, Mayor Khan wants to justify
increased driving taxes on ‘climate change’
and ‘air quality’ grounds. ·
Mayor Khan has levied a charge of £20 on
council tax bills for TfL, which has been pushing for unpopular schemes like
LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods) that force traffic onto main roads. They
make drivers travel further, burning more fuel and increasing emissions. ·
The suggestion that around 4,000 Londoners die a year
as a result of air pollution is a bit of a try-on. Visit here for a
rebuttal on the deaths, which the GLA has admitted are a ‘statistical
construct… not real people’. ·
Yet LBHF is supporting this ruse by suggesting that 82 deaths
a year locally ‘are linked' to air quality’. This figure is from the very
glossy AQAP approved by the LBHF Cabinet
in Dec 2024. It is lifted sweepingly from a computer model. No
information is given such as whether they are heavy smokers or whether there
were other serious conditions, etc. There are also massive
uncertainties in attributing deaths to particulate levels. Yet the AQAP targets an extremely low
level of emissions, far more stringent than national legal targets. This seems
rather like the ‘zero Covid’ approach in China, which imposed drastic
restrictions, seeking perfection (for nominal gain) but at potentially heavy
cost. One of the references
given warns ‘not to over-interpret’ emissions levels. Caution is needed when considering apparent trends for a
number of reasons. Year on year weather changes typically have more effect on
the level of particulates (PM2.5) than variations in emissions. In a
nutshell, this is a warning that drivers could be severely penalised for
weather factors that are beyond anyone’s control. You can object - quick
tips on writing |
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The Fair Deal for the
Motorist campaign was launched in 2009 as a private initiative. It has exposed plans from the EU and levels
of UK government that together
add up to a War on The Motorist. It is solidly
non-party i.e. lets you support your own candidates. Please help spread the
word and - better still - support us in calling for a fairer deal for
drivers who already pay billions a year in taxes. Summary version
of this article
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