Additional £5 million for scrappage scheme in London

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced an additional £5 million for the scrappage scheme that is accelerating the move to cleaner vehicles across London.

The scrappage scheme aims to help Londoners on low incomes or with disabilities ditch their older, more polluting vehicles and switch to cleaner models, ahead of the Ultra Low Emission Zone expansion in October 2021. Since the scheme was launched in 2019, it has helped replace or retrofit more than 10,000 vehicles.

As well as low income Londoners, the scheme has already successfully helped micro businesses, sole traders and charities to scrap more than 5,000 older vans. While the enthusiastic uptake of the vans scheme means that this element is currently suspended, it also means that Londoners are benefitting from reduced emissions from thousands of vans, even before the ULEZ expansion happens.  

Polluting vehicles account for around 50 per cent of London’s harmful NOx air emissions. While significant progress has been made, with a substantial reduction in the number of Londoners living in areas exceeding legal limits for NO2, tens of thousands of Londoners still breathe illegally polluted air and 99 per cent of Londoners live in areas exceeding the World Health Organization recommended guidelines for PM2.5.

Khan said: “Air pollution is a national health crisis that is stunting the lung development of our children and leading to thousands of premature deaths.

“Despite the lack of government support, our car and motorcycle scrappage scheme will continue to help low-income and disabled Londoners scrap their older, polluting vehicles and switch to walking, cycling and public transport or a cleaner vehicle.

“In central London, the Ultra Low Emission Zone has already helped cut toxic roadside nitrogen dioxide pollution by nearly half and led to reductions that are five times greater than the national average. But pollution isn’t just a central London problem, which is why expanding the ULEZ later this year will benefit Londoners across the whole of the city and is a crucial step in London’s green recovery. There is no time to waste. We know pollution hits the poorest Londoners and those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities the hardest, which is why I’m doing everything I can to improve the health for all Londoners.

“We need the government to follow London’s lead and help clean our filthy air once and for all, by strengthening the Environment Bill to include WHO recommended air quality limits to be met by 2030 and supporting a targeted national vehicle scrappage fund that will help motorists across the UK to ditch their polluting cars.”