ULEZ: Ration the use of older cars

• THE mayor of London Sadiq Khan still seems to be determined to expand the ULEZ, ultra low emission zone, to cover all of Greater London despite the lack of evidence that putting draconian restrictions on a specific, very limited, range of internal combustion engine cars will have any significant effect on air quality or climate change.

There are a significant number of people, especially pensioners or poorer disabled people, in the Greater London area who own older cars. Many are little used, quite serviceable, but not ULEZ-compliant. Often they are only kept for essential purposes such as a local weekly shop or for medical emergency use.

In many such cases their owners cannot afford to replace them and, indeed, this would be a waste of resources in general. So I would like to make a suggestion to relieve the financial burden on them. My proposal is that such users could be “rationed” to a maximum number of days use, such as one per week, without payment.

This could easily be arranged by automatically crediting a Transport for London autopay account, for which they would have to register and show eligibility in order to claim the benefit.

NIGEL SHINDLER
Shirlock Road, NW3