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Oliver Goodhall: London’s Creative Enterprise Zones have proved their worth

National government seems to have little regard for the arts and culture, but the Mayor of London's different approach is paying off
Oliver Goodhall

Painting over art in children’s immigration centres. Capping “low value” degrees such as in arts and humanities. Twelve culture secretaries in 13 years. A huge reduction in national funding for arts and culture. The value our national leaders place on the creative economy is plain to see.

However, Sadiq Khan has been taking a different tack. The Mayor launched his Creative Enterprise Zones programme in 2017, and leaders and decision-makers across the country have been watching the capital’s progress ever since. Creative Enterprise Zones (CEZs) are a mayoral initiative which designate areas of London in which artists and creative businesses can find permanent affordable space to work and are supported to start-up and grow, and where local people are helped to learn creative sector skills and access pathways to paid work. 

The Creative Enterprise Zones Impact Report, produced by a multidisciplinary team led by We Made That – of which I am a co-founding partner – on behalf of the Greater London Authority, delves into London’s first six CEZs – in Brixton, Croydon, Deptford and New Cross, Hackney Wick and Fish Island, Hounslow and Tottenham – to understand the effect they have had economically and socially.

Rishi Sunak, as a former Chancellor, will no doubt be “totally, 100 per cent on it” in terms of the economic impacts that have been delivered through the zones. They been demonstrably good for jobs, businesses and local economies. They saw a 14.2 per cent net increase in creative sector jobs and a seven per cent increase in creative businesses between 2018-2021, progress far greater than in London overall. A total of 30,441 square metres of new creative workspace was delivered, 589 creative businesses were supported and 27 traineeships and internships were undertaken.

There’s a powerful story of resilience in these creative clusters, especially as the pandemic gave the whole of London a substantial economic shock. During its onset, when London lost 13 per cent of its creative jobs and 3.9 per cent of its creative businesses, the CEZs only saw a 10 per cent loss of jobs and actually experienced a 22 per cent rise in creative businesses.

The study has also revealed no less important social benefits arising from the first three years of the programme’s implementation. We’ve seen how activity has connected local creatives and residents with opportunities arising from regeneration and change. Attaining CEZ status has helped to vindicate developers making financial contributions to encourage creative sector uses.

Leaders of the Hackney Wick and Fish Island CEZ played vital advocacy and promotional roles in protecting and securing space through new development models. In the context of rising land prices, this was key to securing the first Creative Land Trust in London as part of the Hackney Wick Central Masterplan, which will provide affordable creative workspace in perpetuity.

There have also been compelling accounts of new models for diversity and inclusion centred in creative sector growth, which  needs to become more representative of UK society by addressing the under-representation of ethnically diverse communities, people from low-income backgrounds, those with disabilities and women.

This has involved confronting the fact that only 11 per cent of creative jobs in the country are held by people who aren’t white British while 60 per cent of Lambeth residents aren’t. By way of response, Brixton’s CEZ’s ELEVATE Careers initiative focused on connecting over 2,000 young people, of whom 70 per cent identified as coming from a minority ethnic background, to the creative industries. 

Tarek Virani, Associate Professor in the Creative Industries at University of West England Bristol and critical friend to the CEZ evaluation process, sees the potential of clustering in cities across the globe. In the report, he explains how such zones have boosted agility. Whatever the shocks or challenges are, the creative and cultural industries are uniquely positioned to be the first to feel the effects but also the first to begin to adapt – though, of course, this needs investment and support at government level.

The findings within the impact report set out a powerful platform for further support and intervention. Let’s show the Prime Minister and whoever the culture secretary is at the time you read this that London remains a powerhouse for creative invention. As the programme expands, with Brent, Islington and Westminster set to become the capital’s three newest Creative Enterprise Zones, their leaders will now be still better able to maximise their impact for the communities they serve.

Oliver Goodhall is a co-founding partner of We Made That, which you can follow here. Read the Creative Impact Zone Impact Report via here. Photograph from report cover. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or else a paid subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack.

Categories: Comment
Tags: Brixton, culture, Sadiq Khan

New poll suggests Tories would lose almost all London MPs at general election

The release of the findings, which relate to existing constituencies, has coincided with the reported launch of an "internal review" of how the Conservative party is run in the capital.
Dave Hill

The number of Conservative MPs in London would be reduced to less than a handful were a general election held imminently under current constituency boundaries, according to a new national opinion poll which suggests that party chairman Greg Hands (Chelsea & Fulham), minister for London Paul Scully (Sutton & Cheam) and policing minister Chris Philp (Croydon South) would be among the Tories in the capital to lose their House of Commons seats.

The poll of 11,000 respondents, conducted by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus using a technique known as MRP – described by the British Polling Council as “a way of using large national samples to estimate public opinion at local level” – found that 18 of the 21 current London Tory MPs would lose their seats, contributing to a devastating national defeat for their party.

Labour would gain all but two of the 18 according to the poll, including Cities of London & Westminster, presently represented by former Westminster Council leader Nickie Aiken, along with long-time outer London targets Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), Chingford & Wood Green (Iain Duncan Smith), Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and Uxbridge & South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell), which the Tories held by a narrow margin in the face of a swing to Labour at the recent by-election there.

The poll also found that suburban seats as apparently strongly Tory as Bexleyheath & Crayford (current MP Sir David Evennett), Romford (Andrew Rossindell) and Bromley & Chislehurst (Sir Bob Neill) would switch to Labour, while Carshalton & Wallington (Elliot Colburn), like Scully’s neighbouring Sutton & Cheam, would be won by Liberal Democrats. Only Orpington (Gareth Bacon), Hornchurch & Upminster (Julia Lopez) and Old Bexley & Sidcup (Louie French) would stay in Conservative hands.

The other Tory seats to become Labour would be Finchley & Golders Green (Mike Freer), Hendon (Matthew Offord), Kensington (Felicity Buchan), Beckenham (Bob Stewart), Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner (David Simmonds) and Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond). Such an outcome would leave Labour with 65 of London’s current 73 parliamentary constituencies and the Lib Dems with five, leaving the Tories in third place in the capital. An MRP poll by a different company anticipated Labour’s unpredicted victory in Kensington in 2017.

The poll findings relate to existing UK parliamentary constituencies and do not therefore reflect forthcoming changes, which will see the number of seats in London rise from 73 to 75, probably to Labour’s advantage.

The release of the poll findings to Channel 4 News has been followed by a report today by LBC that Greg Hands has launched an “internal review” of how the Conservative Party in London is run. Reporter Henry Riley says Hands has “been put under pressure by Conservative MPs particularly after the selection of the Tory candidate to be London Mayor”.

Many were surprised that Paul Scully, given his ministerial role and experience, was not included on the shortlist of three from whom the Tories’ London membership, thought to be in the region of 27,000 people, selected London Assembly member and Harrow councillor Susan Hall rather than the politically unknown barrister Moz Hossain after one of the initial trio, Daniel Korski, dropped out.

The review is to be conducted by Tory peer Edward Lister – formally known as Baron Udny-Lister – who was Boris Johnson’s chief of staff for part of the former Prime Minister’s time as London Mayor and previously led Wandsworth Council.

X/Twitter: On London. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack. Photograph: Greg Hands from his X/Twitter profile.

Categories: News
Tags: Chris Philp, Conservatives, Greg Hands, London, Paul Scully, Susan Hall

City Hall highlights holiday free meals fund as poll finds one third of Londoners struggling financially

Funds provided by the Mayor since the spring have helped to boost charitable programmes across the capital
Dave Hill

City Hall has highlighted “hundreds of thousands of low-income families” across London receiving free meals during the current school holidays with financial support from Sadiq Khan, and released new opinion poll findings suggesting that one third of households with children in the capital may be going without “basic needs”, taking on debt to pay for them, or generally struggling to make ends meet.

Over a 12-month period which began in April in response to the soaring cost of living, the Mayor has allocated £3.5 million towards the cost of providing the free meals during school holiday periods through a network of London charities, City Hall says, adding that this will amount to around 10 million meals in all.

Most of the money has been given to two charities, the Mayor’s Fund for London and the Felix Project, to expand their existing holiday meals programmes, which sees food distributed by hundreds of small local organisations and schools, which also put on activities for children. The Felix Project has been given £425,000 of the money specifically to enable it to deliver food on Saturdays as well as on weekdays.

In February, Khan announced he would be giving £130 million to London’s primary schools so they can offer free school meals to every child in the capital throughout the forthcoming 2023/24 academic year, rather than only those eligible under national government criteria. In June, Susan Hall, the Labour Mayor’s Conservative challenger for next year’s election, said that, if elected, she would maintain and extend the policy “for as long as the cost of living situation requires it”.

Nearly half of respondents to the opinion poll of just under 1,000 Londoners with children under the age of 18, conducted by YouGov for City Hall last last month, said they expect to have difficulty paying for their usual food and essential items over the coming six months and 13 per cent – around one in eight – said they were already going without these.

X/Twitter: On London. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to publisher and editor Dave Hill’s Substack. Photograph from Felix Project website.

Categories: News
Tags: child poverty, poverty, Sadiq Khan, Susan Hall

Boris Johnson transport adviser had own London bollards map, says former Deputy Mayor

Heidi Alexander told LBC that Andrew Gilligan entered Transport for London's office when empty with plans for exactly where he wanted them put
Dave Hill

The tight control over Transport for London that was seized and exerted by Boris Johnson’s national government during the pandemic was prominently reported by On London at the time, and the now former TfL Commissioner, Andy Byford, spoke towards the end of his tenure of the “never-ending, exhausting, frustrating, negotiations” over the series of short-term funding deals that were a feature of the period. Now, another of those who had to deal with the micromanagement of TfL’s affairs by Johnson’s close lieutenants has publicly shared a recollection of some of what went on.

Speaking on LBC last week in response to Rishi Sunak ordering a “review” of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), Heidi Alexander, who was Sadiq Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Transport from 2018 until the end of 2021, told presenter Iain Dale about the “ring-fenced pots of money” to be spent on them that were written in to the funding deals, and revealed for the first time that Johnson’s transport special adviser, Andrew Gilligan, “used to come in to Transport for London when the office was empty with a map of exactly where he wanted to put bollards on streets in London”. She added: “That’s not an exaggeration, that’s completely the truth.”

Gilligan (pictured) was given his Number 10 role having previously been appointed “cycling commissioner” by Johnson when he was Mayor of London despite having no previous experience of planning transport networks. Before that, Gilligan, a keen cyclist, had been a strong media supporter of Johnson during his mayoral election campaigns of 2008 and 2012. Supporters of LTNs say they encourage more cycling on London’s roads.

TfL officials of the time made known their displeasure with how Gilligan went about his work, telling journalists privately that he was “uncontrolled” by Johnson, “impolite” and a “zealot” he saw himself as “a bit of a Lone Ranger” whose presence on TfL premises some found unwelcome. However, Gilligan’s dedication to cycling won him admirers among politicians and campaigners. In an interview with a cycling publication he said it was necessary to “annoy people” to get things done.

In July 2020, under the terms of the earliest emergency pandemic funding deals, Gilligan was appointed one of two “special representatives” of the government on TfL’s board, although he made few contributions to board meetings. In September 2021. messages sent by Gilligan emerged instructing his successor at City Hall, Will Norman, about how to make what he called “backsliding councils” retain temporary cycle lanes he wanted made permanent.

Gilligan is understood to have enthusiastically approved of a government condition telling Khan to produce proposals to “widen the scope and levels” of the Congestion Charge, Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone, which resulted in the first of these being increased to £15 a day.

Alexander, who was the MP for Lewsisham East from 2010 until 2018 and is now Labour’s candidate for Swindon South, emphasised to Dale that Sunak had been Johnson’s Chancellor when London’s pandemic period LTNs were installed and Grant Shapps, now Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero was Johnson’s transport secretary. Shapps signed off the funding deals. Many of the temporary cycle schemes and LTNs were embraced by TfL under its “Streetspace” programme, which allocated money to boroughs to install them as well as funding its own projects, such as the cycle track on Park Lane.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to Dave’s Substack. 

Categories: News
Tags: Andrew Gilligan, Grant Shapps, Heidi Alexander, transport, Transport for London

John Vane: Two men and a dog

The Dachshund appeared complicit in its owners' flagrant breach of hosiery convention on the London Overground
John Vane

Followers of the rule that black ankle socks should not be worn with shorts – such people undoubtedly exist – would have been appalled. The two men sat, bold as brass, on the London Overground openly in breach of hosiery convention, flaunting their hairy white legs and all. They had a Dachshund too.

It was a brown Dachshund with a rough little coat, perched perkily on one of its owner’s knees. The men, one wearing glasses, the other a baseball cap, were enjoying some sotto voce running joke, grinning and consulting their phones. The dog seemed somehow in on the act, its canine air of expectation adding to a bubble vibe of levity and conspiracy.

There weren’t many on the train. One seat separated the two men from a woman in a floral skirt tapping at her laptop. A few seats further down another woman, also on her own, wore a black face mask, a reminder of a recent time that can also seem quite far away.

As we neared Liverpool Street, the Dachshund descended to the carriage floor, though attached to the man with a cap by a rope lead. It shook itself, making its collar tag rattle, and sniffed the ankle of the woman with the laptop. She didn’t notice, or notice me noticing. The Dachshund looked at me, then looked away. Apparently, I wasn’t worth sniffing.

The train came to a halt and I resolved to be the last to disembark. One man and his dog stepped out on to the platform. His companion stayed put for a bit. I don’t know why. Then he left and I left too. Soon, they were two men and a dog again, moving more slowly towards the barriers than everybody else, conferring and smilingly agreeing about whatever it was in their matching dark baggy shorts and matching black ankle socks and almost matching dark-coloured trainers.

The one wearing a cap briefly linked an arm through the arm of the one wearing glasses. The Dachshund led them on, and soon all three were swallowing by the London crowd and gone.

John Vane is a pen name. Buy its owner’s novel Frightgeist: A Tall Tale of Fearful Times. Follow its owner on Ex-Twitter.

Categories: Culture, John Vane's London Stories
Tags: Frightgeist, Liverpool Street station, London Overground

Josiah Mortimer: Not breaking the bank at the Old Queen Street Café

It's a slick but pleasingly affordable bistro right in the heart of political Westminster
Josiah Mortimer

At first glance you’d think the Old Queen Street cafe was a private members’ joint that had been in Westminster for a century. Yet it only launched last December, as a culinary companion of the Unherd Club, new premises of the online media title that hosts pretty much everyone with something controversial to say. From “gender critical” figures like Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel to, umm, Marxist theorist Terry Eagleton and priest Giles Fraser, it’s got something to annoy everyone.

Do not, however, let Fraser’s latest Unherd piece – “What’s wrong with cannibalism?” – give you any ideas about the cafe’s menu. (Sorry, Greg Wallace, you’ll have to look elsewhere.).

For somewhere so central – about three minutes from Parliament – it is neatly tucked away. Getting off at St James’s Park station, my Dining Partner and I walked past politicos’ beloved Two Chairmen pub, jostling with civil servants on a half-rainy, half-sunny Thursday evening. I was nearly late because, thankfully, even during a parliamentary recess, there’s often a contact keen to spill some beans to a passing hack.

We found our dinner venue after initially walking past it, a sort-of-clubhouse bedecked in mid-century timber, and wandered in past signs for the Unherd Club and into the brasserie room.  There, we were guided to the plushest, deepest seats you’ll sit in outside the House of Lords. I was sure I saw some low-ranking politician sitting next to us. It may well have been a peer, comparing the chairs.

Renovating the place, located just off Storey’s Gate, cost several million pounds, Westminster gossip rag Guido Fawkes reported after its launch. But it wears it well, with a relaxed vibe, like The Ivy taking a night off. The open dining room looks out onto the quiet street, and you feel a bit protected from the carnage of current affairs, until you hear what the people next to you are talking about.

Drinks, then. A fresh daiquiri, with punchy citrus and ginger flavours. The hibiscus martini was as salty as they come, but my Dining Partner had no complaints. If only I’d ordered my starter as a main course. The grilled goat’s cheese salad (a reasonable £9) was creamy and light, paired perfectly with soft pear and well-dressed leaves. For my meat-eating other half, the prawns on toast (£12) hit the spot – buttery, simple, well-executed.

Cocktails done and dusted, the Riesling (around £34) was not the one to go for – a little flavour-free for my liking, though maybe because I’d just blown out my taste buds with half a kilo of ginger in the cocktail.

Why can’t restaurants coordinate their menus to avoid duplication? The Vegan Society apparently needs to send a memo round explaining that roasted cauliflower (£14) is not the only food veggies can eat. I chose it, and it was an anaemic affair – the veg had barely seen an oven. But the salsa verde offered some much-needed flavour where the ostensible hero of the dish was lacking.

The pork chop (£20) received rave reviews. There was plenty of it, for a start, and the celeriac and apple slaw accompanying it worked well. And we ended on a high. The bakewell French toast dessert, while small, was a winner. Think “almondy jam crepe” and you get the picture.

Stumbling out onto Old Queen Street, I put aside my cauliflower complaints. This is a decent spot for an informal dinner in Westminster without hefty central London prices – a slick yet affordable bistro slap bang in the heart of it.

What I want to know is: who is subsidising it? Unherd backer Paul Marshall? I don’t mind – if he can afford it and you can too, few will be complaining. The staff are sweet and Ella Fitzgerald tunes filled the room, over the gossip of special advisers. Grab a pint at the Two Chairmen afterwards and you’ll be on top of the world.

Josiah Mortimer is chief reporter for Byline Times and writes occasional food and drink reviews for On London on the side. Follow Josiah on Twitter and feel free to get in touch with him too. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to editor and publisher Dave Hill’s Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Culture
Tags: Old Queen Street, St James's Park, Storey's Gate

How should London reduce car use by a quarter?

The Mayor wants this to happen by 2030 to help achieve Net Zero, but the best way to do it is up for debate
Dave Hill

In January 2022, nine months after his re-election, Sadiq Khan announced plans to “secure a green, clean and healthy future for London”. These included seeking to reduce the total distance driven by cars in London by 27 per cent compared with 2018. It was one of the “key target outcomes” set out in a detailed report the Mayor had commissioned about how London could reach his goals of achieving “net zero” by 2030 and reducing road traffic congestion and air pollution.

The Mayor said he would look at four options for taking action straight away. The one he chose, extending the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to cover all of the Greater London, is due to come into effect on 29 August.

Khan also accepted the report’s finding that making significant progress towards that 27 per cent reduction would need, in the words of City Hall’s press release, “a new kind of road user charging system implemented by the end of the decade at the latest”, one which “could abolish all existing road user charges – such as the Congestion Charge and ULEZ – and replace them with a simple and fair scheme where drivers pay per mile, with different rates depending on how polluting vehicles are, the level of congestion in the area and access to public transport”.

City Hall also also told us that Khan had asked Transport for London to look into how such a system could be developed, but added: “It’s clear the technology to implement such a scheme is still years away from being ready”.

What, then, might happen next? The answer will depend on more than the technological practicalities. As the furore surrounding the forthcoming ULEZ expansion has shown, the politics of road user charging (or road pricing) can be fractious.

With the next mayoral election due on 2 May next year, Khan’s Conservative challenger, Susan Hall, has pledged to immediately undo the ULEZ expansion if she wins (though not the earlier one from the initial central London zone out to the North and South Circular roads, which she opposed prior to its October 2021 implementation). So if London is to adopt road user charging comprehensively, a Khan victory next year is a prerequisite.

Opposition to the approaching ULEZ measure looks likely to fade, and London Tories – despite City Hall’s January 2022 announcement – are already characterising TfL’s examination of options for a more advanced form of road pricing as a secretive activity foreshadowing Khan forcing a new “tax” on all London motorists should he win a third term.

For his part, the Mayor will need to make careful choices about the next stage of his car use reduction agenda, with winning the support of Londoners – and their votes – an important consideration. What choices might be open to him?

It isn’t only TfL that has been exploring this question. In April 2019, think tank Centre for London produced proposals for “next generation road user charging” very like the sort Khan has asked TfL to examine. Its report, entitled Green Light, recommended the Mayor and TfL develop options for just such a “distance-based road user charging scheme”, under which drivers would pay by the mile at rates based on distance travelled, emissions from their vehicles, local levels of congestion and pollution, and the relative availability of public transport alternatives to driving.

A single digital system, which the report gives the theoretical name City Move, would replace all the existing camera-based pricing schemes – the Congestion Charge, the Low Emission Zone, the Ultra Low Emission Zone along with any other tolls, such as for the Blackwall and under-construction Silvertown tunnels, that might come on stream in the meantime.

The price of the journey would be set before it began, “based on typical levels of congestion and pollution along a recommended route”. City Move would be a “multimodal London transport platform – a simple integrated website and app for all London’s road and public transport users”. This would enable drivers to, for example, “register for a personal travel account that links Oyster, contactless and driver details”, weigh up journey options – taking in cost, time and so on – “across the full range of [transport] modes”, from bus to bicycle to car club.

City Move accounts would be for individuals rather than attached to particular vehicles, the report said. Creating the system would be a continuation of TfL’s track record of innovating travel technology. “Satellite GPS-enabled smartphones or in-vehicle devices would allow for the accurate tracking and charging of vehicle trips”, with the existing automatic number plate recognition camera network as reinforcement. Paying per mile would become a bit like paying a fare.

This was a comprehensive and, were the technology effectively designed and deployed, potentially achievable proposition with the bonus of being guided by a “user pays, polluter pays” principle. For some, though, it might be complicated as well as alarming from the personal privacy point of view and in wider and deeper ways.

That point was eloquently expressed by Adam Tyndall, programme director (transport) with the business group London First – since renamed BusinessLDN – in a paper published in April 2022. People’s attachments to private motor vehicles include, as Tyndall put it, “an emotional explanation,” with “the cultural trope of the road trip” embedded as “the ultimate expression of freedom”.

In view of this, as well as making the case for more road user charging on congestion, health, environmental and business efficiency grounds, and as a way of helping the city’s road network to “move up a gear” in general, Tyndall emphasised the importance of “the quality of engagement between policymakers, businesses and Londoners”.

He argued for a step up from the ULEZ, which is primarily a tool for limiting pollution from tail pipes, to a London-wide scheme for limiting congestion too. His “sustainable integrated zonal solution” would have the virtues of being a simple next step forward technologically that would also be easy for Londoners (and others) to adapt to and understand. There would be three new congestion and emissions charging zones, based on those that already exist:

  • A Central Zone, which would effectively be the original congestion charge zone, founded by Ken Livingstone in 2003, which was also the original ULEZ.
  • An Inner Zone stretching out to the North and South Circular roads, which is the territory encompassed by Khan’s first expansion of the ULEZ.
  • An Outer Zone covering the rest of Greater London, as the plain old Low Emission Zone has since 2008 (another Livingstone innovation) and the upcoming further enlarged ULEZ also will.

Those three concentric zones could, as Tyndall puts it, “be established almost overnight” by relying largely on existing infrastructure. Charges would be lowest in the Outer Zone, where car dependency is greatest and public transport coverage lowest, and highest in the Central Zone, where the reverse is true in both respects.

All the different existing road pricing schemes “could be incorporated into a single daily charge at a fixed price point that depends only upon how polluting your vehicle is and which zone(s) you access,” Tyndall wrote.

There would be discounts, concessions and Oyster-style daily caps. Tyndall estimated possible average charges of £1.55 for the Outer zone and £2.50 for the Inner Zone. And it would all add up to fewer cars on all of London’s roads, less pollution, and a boost for TfL’s fragile bank account of maybe £400 million a year which, unlike its income from the ULEZ, would not shrink as cleaner cars replaced the dirtiest.

If the type of ultra-sophisticated Centre for London City Move solution is either not available for a while or likely to face strong resistance, the three zones approach might be an effective interim move and, if necessary, could function for a long time.

Whichever path towards that 27 per cent reduction Khan selects, he will need to make his case to Londoners persuasively and shrewdly leading up to next May – and, it appears, largely in political isolation.

Labour nationally has panicking in the aftermath of just failing to win the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election result, seeing the six per cent swing in Labour’s favour in a resiliently Tory area as a glass half empty that, but for the ULEZ, would have been full.

The Conservative government too has taken flight from car-curbing transport policies, with Rishi Sunak declaring his opposition to low traffic neighbourhoods. Less conspicuously, his government has poured cold water over a report on road pricing by the Tory majority cross-party Commons transport committee, published in February last year, the month following Khan’s “green, clean healthy future” announcement.

The committee’s report said the government should commission an arms-length body to look at “a road pricing mechanism that uses telematic technology to charge drivers according to distance driven, factoring in vehicle type and congestion” as a way of replacing shrinking revenues from tax and petrol as the number of electric cars has increased.

Telematic technology, which is mentioned in the Centre for London report, involves connecting a device to a car’s dashboard. It is well-explained in the Campaign for Better Transport’s September 2022 report about public attitudes to vehicle taxation reform. The MPs saw “no viable alternative to this” if motoring taxation was to be linked to road usage. But, almost a year later, in January 2023, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt informed the committee that “the government does not currently have plans to consider road pricing”.

But while national politicians have anxiety attacks about road user charging, it is clear from the Commons transport committee report that government officials see it as inevitable. Last December, appearing before the London Assembly’s transport committee, Nick Bowes, formerly Sadiq Khan’s policy director and by then Centre For London’s chief executive, spoke of Whitehall’s “desperation” for London to take the lead on the issue:

“They are desperate for London to go first for two reasons, the first is to just test public opinion; there is a view that London is probably the place where you can do this ahead of the rest of the country, and it has shown that on other road user charging schemes. And secondly, they can iron out any problems and then they can adopt it nationally. I fully expect that they would be urging TfL on behind the scenes to push ahead with this.”

Every move towards road user charging in Britain has been strongly and sometimes angrily resisted. When London’s Congestion Charge appeared on the horizon it was stoutly opposed even before the mayoralty, with its powers to implement it, was established. For example, in 1999 Conservative Richard Ottaway, the MP for Croydon South, said in the Commons that he shared widespread concern about congestion and pollution, but added that “clobbering the motorist is not the solution” and rejected outright what he called the Labour government’s “anti-car rhetoric”.

Four years later, in February 2003, London’s first Mayor, Ken Livingstone, introduced the central London congestion charge despite the disquiet of that “anti-car” Labour government and even of his own most trusted advisers. In May 2004, he was comfortably re-elected. The parallels are not exact, but maybe that is nonetheless a good omen for Sadiq Khan.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to Dave’s Substack. Image from C40 Cities.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Adam Tyndall, Centre For London, congestion, pollution, Sadiq Khan, Susan Hall, Transport for London

Sadiq Khan extends ULEZ scrappage scheme financial help to every Londoner who needs it

The Mayor has boosted the size of the fund, widened eligibility to it and increased amounts previously available
Dave Hill

Sadiq Khan is to offer grants of £2,000 to every Londoner whose car does not meet the standards of the capital’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone as part of a £50 million increase in his scrappage scheme for supporting compliance with the policy prior to its expansion to the whole of Greater London on 29 August.

The Mayor has again confirmed the expansion will go ahead as planned following the rejection last week of a legal challenge by five Conservative-run local authorities, including four London boroughs, and in the wake of Labour’s narrow defeat in the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election last month, which party leader Keir Starmer blamed on the policy.

Khan has drawn on City Hall’s financial reserves to increase the size of the scrappage pot from £110 million to £160 million, enabling the Mayor to also increase the sums already available to businesses, charities and disabled people for replacing, retrofitting or adapting vans and minibuses.

Some of the added features of the scheme will come into effect straight away and others, including the £2,000 grants across the board, not until 21 August, eight days before the expansion begins.

Changes announced from 4 August:

  • Small businesses and charities with non-compliant vans will receive £7,000 towards replacing them, an increase from the previous £5,000.
  • Grants for wheelchair accessible vehicles will go up from £5,000 to £10,000.
  • Grants for scrapping minibuses will increase from £7,000 to £9,000.
  • Grants for replacing non-compliant vans with electric vans increase from £7,500 to £9,500.
  • Grants to replace a non-compliant minibus with an electric minibus increase from £9,500 to £11,500.
  • Retrofit grants increase from £5,000 to £6,000, which City Hall says is “typically enough to cover the whole cost of retrofitting”.

Changes announced from 21 August:

  • Every Londoner with a non-compliant car will be eligible for a £2,000 grant.
  • Londoners with non-compliant motorcycles will be eligible for £1,000.
  • Small businesses and sole traders will be able to receive up to £21,000 towards scrapping up to three vans.
  • Charities will be able to receive up to £27,000 in grants to scrap up to three minibuses.

Access to scrappage money had previously been prioritised for low income and disabled Londoners, and at the start of June was widened to include all small businesses and families receiving child benefit. City Hall says over £60 million of the original £110 million has not been taken up.

The Mayor said when welcoming last week’s High Court decision that he had been listening to the concerns of Londoners and would be providing further help.

Making the latest announcement, he hailed “a huge expansion to the scrappage scheme that means all Londoners with non ULEZ-compliant cars will now be able to get financial support to switch to greener, less polluting vehicles”.

Confirming that he is “not prepared to step back, delay or water down vital green policies like ULEZ” designed to reduce pollution and address the climate crisis, Khan said, “I’m determined no Londoner or London business is left behind”, adding, “we need to take people with us on the path to a sustainable future”.

With financial support available to all in need of it to make their vehicles ULEZ compliant, he urged Londoners to “come and get it”.

The move has been welcomed by leaders of a variety of London organisations, including Tim Dexter of the charity Asthma + Lung UK, Andrew Westcott, director of sustainability and Regulation with private hire company Addison Lee, and Nadra Ahmed of the National Care Association, who urged social care providers to ensure their London workforces are aware of the scrappage scheme’s new provisions. Concerns had been expressed that car-dependent care workers would be badly penalised by the ULEZ expansion.

Describing the ULEZ expansion as “an important next step”, John Dickie, chief executive at BusinessLDN, said cleaning up London’s air “not only saves lives, it makes the city a more attractive place to live, work and visit” and welcomed the additional support as “vital for businesses and households making the transition during a cost of living crisis”.

Responding to the news, Liberal Democrat London Assembly member and transport spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon welcomed Khan’s decision, but regretted he had not enlarged the scrappage scheme sooner – the Lib Dem group had argued he should have doubled it to £220 million when setting his budget earlier this year.

Pidgeon added: “There are also questions over what happens to those who were financially vulnerable who have dug deep to scrape money together for a new vehicle, but it now turns out would have been eligible for the scheme?”

Since the announcement, Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall has criticised Khan, saying the announcement is “too little too late” and claiming the grants are insufficient “and will only push up prices further”. She has renewed her pledge to “stop ULEZ expansion on day one” if elected Mayor next May.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders analysed by Transport for London showed that 86 per cent of cars registered in London were ULEZ-compliant in 2022, up from 77 per cent in 2021. If the upward trend has continued at the same rate, the figure will now be above 90 per cent.

Data from the 2021 Census showed that 42 per cent of London households possess no motor vehicle, although the proportion rises to almost 80 per cent in some outer London boroughs. TfL says that nine out of ten cars and eight out of ten vans seen by its cameras travelling through outer London are ULEZ-compliant, although some of those will be registered outside the capital.

City Hall says a search of online retailers found one offering nearly 5,000 ULEZ-compliant cars for sale at below £2,000 with 200 miles of central London.

Twitter: Dave Hill and On London. If you value On London and its writers, become a supporter or a paid subscriber to Dave’s Substack. Article updated on 4 August 2023 to include Susan Hall’s response to Khan’s announcement.

Categories: News
Tags: BusinessLDN, Caroline Pidgeon, Sadiq Khan, transport, ultra low emission zone