1 week Ago By [email protected] (Davina Jethwa)
Most Kent drivers hit with Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) fines since the latest expansion are still refusing to pay. Transport for London (TfL) is chasing hundreds of millions of pounds owed, of which more than £11million comes from motorists with vehicles registered in the county. City Hall says it is now ramping up its enforcement teams in an effort to clawback the cash as the revolt against the charge rages on.
The ULEZ scheme, which requires certain polluting vehicles to pay a daily charge of £12.50 to drive within the zone, was controversially expanded into Greater London on August 29 last year, and faced a huge backlash from Kent residents . In the year before the scheme was expanded, between August 29, 2022, and August 29, 2023, a total of 69,598 penalty charge notices (PCNs) were dished out to drivers with vehicles registered in the county.
KentOnline submitted a follow up freedom of information request to TfL to get the most up to date figures which now reveals the number has nearly doubled since the first year of the expansion. Nearly 125,000 fines have now been issued to motorists residing at Kent postcodes. In April, we reported how six months into the expansion, only 1 in 4 fines had been paid.
And, it seems the revolt continues as the 25% compliance figure has not budged. Between August 29 2023 and August 29 2024, only 31,000 PCNS – equating to around £2.8 million – have been paid to TfL.
It means a a staggering 79,000 PCNs – roughly 63% – remain open. Failure to pay the ULEZ charge will result in a £180 penalty, reduced to £90 if paid within two weeks. Based on that second figure it means TfL is missing a minimum of £11million from fines not yet settled with the transport body by Kent motorists.
A further 40 fines have been written off and 11,000 have been cancelled. A TfL spokesman explained those written off indicate where it has accepted a part payment for a penalty and written off the remaining balance after a representation was made and accepted. The most common case of this is when a vehicle is issued to a hire company, but the driver resides elsewhere.
On the number of fines, he added: “The figures include PCNs issued to the same vehicle on more than one occasion so are not reflective of the total number of individual vehicles that have been subject to a PCN. “PCNs are issued to the registered keeper of a vehicle as held by the DVLA. This does not always indicate that this is where the driver resides.
” TfL says any revenue generated is reinvested back into the city’s travel network and it is stepping up enforcement action against persistent penalty charge evaders. It is now tripling the number of people in its investigations team to boost the work with enforcement agents to target those in polluting vehicles that refuse to pay. Enforcement action it can take includes requesting bailiffs to visit an evader’s address, clamping a vehicle, or removing a vehicle and selling it at auction.
This is in addition to the further fees that evaders accrue when they do not to pay the fine within the time limit. Motorists living in Bromley, Dartford and Gravesend have received the most fines. In the BR5 area, which covers Orpington on the fringes of Kent, 8,500 fines have been issued.
Only 500 have been paid with 7,000 remaining “open”. It’s a similar picture over the border in Dartford, across the DA1 area, where drivers have been slapped with more than 7,000 PCNs. Of these, 800 have been paid and nearly 6,000 remain open.
In Gravesend and Northfleet residents in DA11 have been handed more than 6,000 fines. But in line with neighbouring borough compliance rates, only 900 have been paid and 4,500 are still open. Following its expansion many expressed concerns over the negative impact on regular commuters and businesses based on the border who rely on custom from the capital.
Dartford Councillor Kyle Stealey (Con) said: “I represent a ward that sits on the border and a lot of my residents - particularly those in Leyton Cross - are pensioners. “They told me they had a car that they thought was going to see them through, it was an older model and they were going to keep it until they could keep driving. “A number of them told me they sold that vehicle and were purchasing ones using their savings.
“ULEZ-compliant vehicles had a bit of a premium at one point and the price of them was much higher so they told me they were using savings to buy vehicles that were tens of thousands of pounds.” Cllr Stealey added he wasn’t surprised but was very disappointed to hear Dartford residents were the most significantly affected. He says the Conservatives remain opposed to it but “obviously, we wouldn’t be advocating for people to ignore fines”.
Dartford’s new Labour MP Jim Dickson (Lab), who backed the expansion of the charge during his time in London at the helm of Lambeth Council, says he believes concessions should have been made at the time of the expansion. “This reinforces my view that additional concessions and support should have been given to people living near the ULEZ boundary including my constituents in Dartford,” he explained. He says these could have taken the form of an extension of the scrappage scheme, so people were given a reasonable allowance to upgrade their vehicles which would result in them now incurring fines later.
Mr Dickson added: “I do think ULEZ is the right approach but at the same time we should have a just transition to net zero which means that those least able to bear the burden should be supported and that didn’t happen in Dartford. “We didn’t have a government who were prepared to engage with ULEZ and therefore whether they were prepared to fund some of the concessions.” Meanwhile, protesters have branded the scheme a “war on motorists” and continue to rage against the expansion.
In Bexley, groups often gather sporting dinosaur costumes to block ULEZ mobile camera vans. Others are taking action into their own hands, calling themselves “blade runners”, and congregating on social media pages to warn each other of cameras being installed. But, TfL says its crackdown on those who persistently evade penalty charge notices has seen it recover £25.
6million of debt using bailiffs over 12 months across the whole of the charging area. READ MORE: Did ULEZ accidentally create more business opportunities for Kent? A further 1,400 vehicles have been seized resulting in £700,000 recouped from the sales. And while TfL says money received is reinvested into running and improving London's transport network, such as the new Superloop bus service, Cllr Stealey has blasted the transport body, insisting “we don’t see any of the benefits of that as Dartford residents”.
“At the same time as he [Sadiq Khan] was introducing these charges, he was threatening to cut bus services into the town,” he added. “We do rely on TfL service for people to get in and cross borders but we don’t see any of those benefits – the Elizabeth Line didn’t extend to Dartford, it ends at Abbey Wood. “I think if you are going to take from one we would like to see something back.
” He added that while he understood those commuting into ULEZ zones may contribute to road degradation and pollution levels, it “goes both ways” with Londoners entering Kent and such maintenance costs should be covered by road tax. “We want to encourage people to drive cleaner, greener vehicles and I think there is a way to do that more cost affectively rather than penalise people through taxation,” he added. “If we go right back to the beginning when this scheme was originally proposed – it was a £3 blanket charge for every vehicle.
“That was his original intention so it shows you that this wasn’t about an air quality issue.” TfL’s head of transport strategy Christina Calderato said: “On 29 August 2023, the Ultra Low Emission Zone expanded London-wide to help tackle the triple challenges of air pollution, the climate emergency and traffic congestion. “Those outside the London boundary are also benefitting from cleaner air, with drivers outside the capital shifting to cleaner vehicles that meet the standards.
“Only 0.27 per cent of vehicles driving in the zone receive a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). “If a driver receives a PCN they can challenge the notice by making a representation.
“When a representation is received and considered, a request for further evidence may be made and the PCN will remain frozen while the information requested is provided. “This process can take up to three months, meaning it can be some time before an accurate figure of PCNs paid can be recorded.” On the subject of the scrappage scheme mentioned by Mr Dickson, she added: “Unlike other regions, London and the South East did not receive any funding for a scrappage scheme from the former government.
“The Mayor wrote to the former government on numerous occasions to ask for a national scrappage scheme to support people who drive into London from the Home Counties with the most polluting vehicles.”.
