Firms in Essex could close due to ULEZ, warns business leader

Some companies are warning they could have to close due to new Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) around London, a Basildon business leader has said.

It comes as a pensioner from Essex is facing having to pay £150 a year to visit his parents' graves in the zone.

In a bid for cleaner air, more polluting cars will have to pay the £12.50 daily charge.

Transport for London said ULEZ is vital in tackling air pollution, the climate emergency and congestion.

The current zone runs inside the north and south circular but on 29 August London Mayor Sadiq Khan is set to expand its borders out to the M25.

It means vehicles which do not meet the standard - usually petrol cars and vans registered before 2006 - will have to pay the charge if they drive anywhere within the zone.

The change has led to opposition from some people who live in the areas surrounding London but have to drive into the expanded ULEZ for work.

Mr Khan has launched a multi-million pound scrappage scheme, so drivers can update their vehicles, but it is only available to people living in Greater London.

Stuart Woodroffe, 69, from Coggeshall, near Colchester, makes monthly visits to the cemetery inside the ULEZ zone where his parents Betty and Jack are buried.

"My mum and dad are together, they were cremated and buried at St Laurence in Upminster which is where I visit them.

"But it's in the zone so I can still go down there but it's going to have an effect on me financially. It's going to cost me £150 a year just to give to the mayor of London.

"Having to find more and more money, it's getting difficult especially as I am on fixed income now."

David Barnes, of the Basildon business group in the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said a recent survey of companies in and outside London found that 18% claim they will close when ULEZ is introduced because they will no longer be viable.

"Businesses trading with London are going to have to pay the costs, they are going to have to absorb the costs and possibly reduce what they pay staff," he said.

"Some businesses are telling us they are going to have to stop doing any work altogether. There are also businesses on the border with London that said they have considered closing their companies. That is sad."

Michael Pegler, of Pegler Removals of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, said: "The impact of us of ULEZ is going to be pretty large. Retention of staff is a massive problem.

"We have staff [that live in the zone] who cannot afford to upgrade their vehicles. There's a good chance of us losing three or four staff who have been with us for years."

He said if the scheme was phased in over two years "it wouldn't be a problem".

Jon Fuller, of south east Essex Friends of the Earth and lives in Southend, said ULEZ was vital in the fight for cleaner air.

"There is a major health crisis and we have to tackle it. Tackling climate change and toxic air are not going to be easy, but we have to do this for the young," he said.

"We have to do it because people are dying. We have to get on with it and we also have to do it outside London in areas like Southend, Chelmsford, Colchester and Harlow."

Christina Calderato, Transport for London's director of strategy and policy said: "The London-wide ULEZ... will ensure millions more people can breathe cleaner air.

"Those outside the London boundary will also benefit, with drivers outside of the capital shifting to cleaner vehicles that meet the standards.

"The mayor has launched London's biggest ever scrappage scheme worth £110m.

"Unlike other UK cities, the capital has not received any funding for a scrappage scheme from the government. That is why the mayor has written to the prime minister to ask for further funding which could also cover people who drive into London from the home counties with the most polluting vehicles."

You can see more on this story on Politics East on BBC One on Sunday, 2 April at 10:00 BST, with it also available on BBC iPlayer afterwards.

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