London is becoming a very expensive place for motorists. The Mail has compiled a grim list of existing and proposed charges to show drivers just how much it is going to cost to drive in the capital. Here’s an excerpt:
London motorists have long felt under fire. And that’s no surprise: driving around the capital under Mayor Sadiq Khan is an increasingly expensive and stressful endeavour.
The Congestion Charge, introduced in 2003, was joined by Ulez in 2019. And later this month the Mayor will extend the scheme across every London borough – prompting critics to dub him ‘Highwayman Khan’.
To add insult to injury, it recently emerged drivers will soon have to pay to use the Blackwall Tunnel – a major route linking Central London with the South East. This provoked fresh claims vehicle users are being used as a ‘cash cow’.
Below is the story of how a dizzying array of charges, tolls and fines risk making London a no-go area for motorists.
£12.50 a Day Ulez Charge
The expansion of Ulez at the end of the month has been Mr. Khan’s single most controversial transport policy – with even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer blaming it for his party’s recent by-election loss in Uxbridge.
The scheme will cover all London boroughs from August 29th and force drivers of non-compliant vehicles to shell out £12.50 a day – on top of any other charges like the £15 Congestion Charge.
Some opponents have resorted to vandalism, with a video showing activists from a group calling itself the ‘Blade Runners’ sabotaging a Ulez camera with a tree lopper as diners watched on.
TfL has insisted that nine out of ten cars seen driving in outer London on an average day comply with the Ulez standards. But figures obtained by the RAC show more than 690,000 licensed cars in the whole of London are likely to be non-compliant.
A ‘stealth’ fleet of camera vans will be used to enforce the hated levy – with the obvious advantage that they are mobile and difficult to vandalise.
At least 200 of the permanent cameras have been attacked so far, with TfL no longer updating its numbers to avoid encouraging more attacks. …
‘£2 to £5’ for the Blackwall Tunnel
Drivers suffered another blow this week when it emerged they will soon have to pay a toll to use the Blackwall Tunnel – one of the busiest crossings over the Thames.
TfL confirmed it will be charging drivers who use the previously free route, which is used by thousands of motorists commuting into the capital from the South East.
The toll will vary by vehicle and has not yet been decided – although when the idea was mooted by TfL in 2012 the fee was estimated at £2 for cars, rising to £5 for trucks.
The toll for the Blackwall Tunnel will only be implemented once the Silvertown Tunnel, which will link Silvertown and Greenwich, opens in 2025.
TfL say the fee will cover the £2 billion cost of building and maintaining the new tunnel, with any surplus ‘reinvested’ into the wider transport network.
The Blackwall Tunnel is one of the few crossings in the area, with only the Dartford Crossing and Woolwich Ferry further east. It is currently used by 100,000 vehicles every day.
Robin Hopkins, 63, is director of delivery firm RMH Same Day Couriers and regularly travels to London from his home in the Midlands.
He told MailOnline the charge for the Blackwall Tunnel was only the latest example of Mr. Khan seeking to ‘grab cash’ from motorists.
“I’ve been in Central London since early today and have been through the Congestion Charge zone and Ulez,” he said.
“The Blackwall Tunnel will only be the start of it – I can see tolls being up on other bridges and crossings as well.
“As soon as I have extra costs or tolls I have to pass those onto my customers. It’s a trickle-down effect.
“Transport businesses have already been hammered by fuel costs, and a lot of them have had to pack it in after decades of service.
“Motorists are clearly being targeted for a cash grab by Sadiq Khan. We urgently need a new Mayor who befits the role.”
£3 Toll on a Reopened Hammersmith Bridge?
Hammersmith Bridge in South West London was shut to cars in 2019 after cracks appeared in the handsome Victorian structure. Ever since, the failure to repair and reopen it has become something of a national embarrassment.
Councillor Stephen Cowan, leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, has emphasised that any decision over the future of the bridge is ultimately down to Mr. Khan and the Government.
He has raised the prospect of a toll to fund the estimated £230 million repair bill. The council has estimated a charge of £3 could raise the amount needed.
A spokesperson for Mr. Khan suggested he would be prepared to back a toll if it was managed by the Department for Transport.
“Hammersmith & Fulham Council have been clear that the purpose of a potential charge on the bridge would be to raise revenue to repay the costs of repair works on the bridge, and not to deliver wider transport policy objectives,” they said.
“As such, the appropriate approach to introduce the toll is through a tolling order, which would be managed by the Department for Transport.
“The Mayor and TfL are committed to supporting the reopening of Hammersmith Bridge and will continue to work closely with the local council and the Government.”
You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.
Make up a global catastrophe. Force people to do all manner of insane things to avoid the “catastrophe”.
When catastrophe is averted, claim it was all the action taken that saved us.
Everybody will have been so comoletely indoctrinated and so invested in the supposed solutions that it will be impossible to convince them they’ve been duped.
That btw is pretty much the story of most government action.
This is a linear forecast of events. Reality is far more chaotic though.
Dr G
2 years ago
I think it was Basil Fawlty who said “a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth”.
May have been someone else.
Judging by the smug visage of the accompanying photo, she looks like she needed more hugs as a child.
Usually attributed to Goebbels, and cited as such over half a million times on the Internet. But in fact there’s no evidence he ever said it, which kind of proves the point.
Goebbels, in fact, accused the English of stupidity in “telling a big lie and sticking to it.” “Vaccines are safe and effective.” “Russia has run out of ammunition.” “Britain is getting hotter year by year.” “Diversity is a traditional British value.” It seems he was right, doesn’t it?
I don’t believe in the man-made catastrophic climate change narrative, but I think we should acknowledge that man does have some impact on the climate, mainly through the greenhouse effect. My understanding is that any contribution man has made through the greenhouse effect is pretty much at saturation point i.e. increases in atmospheric CO2 above the current level of around 410 parts per million will have negligible impact (see the attached diagram, which indicates a rise in CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm increases temp by 0.4C and 400 to 1600 ppm results in 1C).
I also think it is disingenuous of us to talk of man’s share of CO2 emissions, since Gaia both emits (land, volcanoes, oceans) and absorbs (vegetation, oceans) CO2. So, while man’s share of emissions may be less than 5%, it will be a much higher % of net emissions (see attached diagram).
What bullshit.
98% of Co2 is reused.
Are you telling me that man’s Co2 ‘forces’ only a positive feedback loop and Gaia’s does not.
Greenhouse is horseshit.
There is no glass ceiling.
I think the big hitters on our side of the argument (ie those not buying the climate catastrophe narrative), such as Richard Lindzen and William Happer, do acknowledge the greenhouse effect and that the burning of fossil fuels has had a significant impact on the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 410 ppm over the last 150-200 years.
I do agree with you that there is no glass ceiling round the Earth.
If you want to generate a halting problem in someone claiming that a large percentage of species have gone extinct due to climate change, ask them to name one.
The BBC are CLIMATE ACTIVISTS. They claim to be reporting on science. But in science you question everything, otherwise it is isn’t science you are dealing in. So by questioning NOTHING all the BBC reveal is that they are not reporting on science at all, they are reporting on “Official Science”. You can switch on TV News almost every day and hear of extreme weather, more floods, more droughts, more storms etc etc and most people busy with work and family life will just accept that as truth because they assume they are listening to investigative journalism. But in the real world there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event. ———— How can it be that our National Broadcaster is reporting the opposite of what is true and getting away with it? SKY NEWS with their “Climate Show” do something similar but we are not all forced to pay for SKY. ————-The mainstream media talk of the “Climate Emergency” and the “Climate Crisis”, but this is not the language of science, it is the language of politics. For many of the unsuspecting public it is difficult to grasp why misinformation on this industrial scale would be taking place. They think the issue is all about science, but don’t realise the issue is highly politicised and that there is a political agenda behind it all. That political agenda is the United Nations Sustainable Development, and if there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event then that whole political agenda collapses. So the idea that extreme weather is getting worse MUST be kept in the public’s eye. They must at all times be under the impression that floods and storms will kill millions and sea level rise will drown coastal cities. This is the biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated and I am thoroughly embarrassed that the British Broadcasting Company is part of it.
‘…on climate change, the appalling decision made years ago to avoid debating the so-called ‘settled’ but unproven science narrative means that almost any crackpot green opinion and agitprop can be broadcast without any attempt made to inquire into its validity.’
We can trace the decision to the infamous Jan-2006 seminar organised by Harrabin himself – the actual Harrabin, not an ancestor – entitled ‘Climate Change: The Challenge to Broadcasting.’
For several years the BBC stonewalled all enquiry on who the seminar’s attendees had been, though it was known that the Heads TV and Radio News and many senior executives were there. An internet archive search revealed in 2009 that only 3 scientists, none of them ‘climate’, were there, the rest of the attendees being emissaries of WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the earth, etc.
The only journalist, Richard D North, described the BBC people present as ignorant, having done no background reading or research, and bent on whipping up the most hysterically alarmist picture possible.
The keynote speaker was the Australian ecologist Lord May. He was president of the Royal Society 2000-05 and had transformed it into a relentless evangeliser for global warming. The gist of his speech was that dissenters were so few and marginal they could be safely classed with flat-earthers and perpetual-motionists, and the BBC Charter obligation of impartiality could therefore be set aside.
No criterion has ever been set or even debated for restoring it, despite the fact that many eminent atmospheric physicists – profs Lindzen, Christy, Spencer – have denied that there is any climate crisis.
Don’t the Big Black Cock corporation realise how out of touch they are with the licence payers? Or, maybe they aren’t?
” I’d gladly pay twice the price for my television licence ”
happily stupid from Milton Keynes.
10navigator
2 years ago
“Brainwashing, corrupt, biased” are some of the more moderate adjectives applied to the BBC by readers of Andrew Montford’s excellent 57 page pamphlet ‘The Propaganda Bureau.’
It should be compulsory reading for all, with lefties compelled to learn it by rote.
I’ve just been offered 450 quid and an apology by the BBC for harassment over the TV licence and subsequently lying to me.
It was beautiful, they thought they were being cute, but every email or letter they sent contained lies.
For example, they said I had no visits from am enforcement officer in 2020….I said I never said 2020. They then realised I’d had 3 visits but said it was “the other department’s fault” for withholding the information…and so on.
They could not put pen to paper or finger to keyboard without lying and it was the carelessness of their lies which was as galling as the harassment. Could have been written by Kirtsy Wark.
Result! But I suspect very few get a modest jackpot but are continually harassed in a Kafka-esque manner.
Maybe 1 in 800? Where have I heard that stat before?
mikkip
1 year ago
What shocks me is the number of people that genuinely believe all this catastrophising nonsense. Extreme gullibility and an inability to question the validity of outlandish claims make the general population vulnerable to manipulation. When will they turn bbc off?
Covid-1984
1 year ago
The people outside of Islington don’t even watch the British Bias Corporation, never mind paying the laughable licence fee. The access to objectivity and the truth from the Internet broadcasting news network has killed it.
The BBC is now the Globalist and Government slut, used to control the official narrative with Ofcom, and the Trusted News Initiative (what a joke). Taxpayers are not just funding via the licenses but also through Government spending on advertising. Billy Boy has kindly given them over £12million. Other channels like Sky are similar.
The once proud bastion of truth and integrity across the globe is one of our worst enemies, working with Government and corporations to cause tremendous harm to our society.
Last edited 1 year ago by Less government
GMO
1 year ago
Humanity-caused climate change advocates remind me of this –
In the past, in some civilizations, sacrifices were offered so that the sun would rise the next day.
Sacrifices were offered.
Sure enough the sun rose the next day.
Therefore proof that the sacrifices worked to cause the sun to rise.
GMO
1 year ago
The media increases readership and viewership by giving constant attention to a ‘crisis’.
It’s in their interest to hype every conspiracy theory about catastrophe and crisis.
Gets people attention and they want to read or view the news stories.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
It’s going to be a rerun of COVID.
Make up a global catastrophe. Force people to do all manner of insane things to avoid the “catastrophe”.
When catastrophe is averted, claim it was all the action taken that saved us.
Everybody will have been so comoletely indoctrinated and so invested in the supposed solutions that it will be impossible to convince them they’ve been duped.
That btw is pretty much the story of most government action.
This is a linear forecast of events. Reality is far more chaotic though.
I think it was Basil Fawlty who said “a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth”.
May have been someone else.
Judging by the smug visage of the accompanying photo, she looks like she needed more hugs as a child.
Usually attributed to Goebbels, and cited as such over half a million times on the Internet. But in fact there’s no evidence he ever said it, which kind of proves the point.
Goebbels, in fact, accused the English of stupidity in “telling a big lie and sticking to it.” “Vaccines are safe and effective.” “Russia has run out of ammunition.” “Britain is getting hotter year by year.” “Diversity is a traditional British value.” It seems he was right, doesn’t it?
I’d more or less heard the same, though it is April 1st!
And more bugs. Yum.
The ‘big lie’ quote is usually attributed to Joseph Goebbels!
Co2? Causes weather, seasons and climate?
There is 0 correlation between Co2 and climate. It is plant food. Necessary to make oxygen. I would like more of it please.
After sitting through 5 months of a shitty UK winter I would like some warmtarding too please.
Doesn’t Gaia emit 95% of the 0.04% Co2 trace chemical? Isn’t THE SCIENCE ™ suggesting we kill her to save her?
I don’t believe in the man-made catastrophic climate change narrative, but I think we should acknowledge that man does have some impact on the climate, mainly through the greenhouse effect. My understanding is that any contribution man has made through the greenhouse effect is pretty much at saturation point i.e. increases in atmospheric CO2 above the current level of around 410 parts per million will have negligible impact (see the attached diagram, which indicates a rise in CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm increases temp by 0.4C and 400 to 1600 ppm results in 1C).
I also think it is disingenuous of us to talk of man’s share of CO2 emissions, since Gaia both emits (land, volcanoes, oceans) and absorbs (vegetation, oceans) CO2. So, while man’s share of emissions may be less than 5%, it will be a much higher % of net emissions (see attached diagram).
What bullshit.
98% of Co2 is reused.
Are you telling me that man’s Co2 ‘forces’ only a positive feedback loop and Gaia’s does not.
Greenhouse is horseshit.
There is no glass ceiling.
No need to be discourteous since MichaelM didn’t actually say that.
I think the big hitters on our side of the argument (ie those not buying the climate catastrophe narrative), such as Richard Lindzen and William Happer, do acknowledge the greenhouse effect and that the burning of fossil fuels has had a significant impact on the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 410 ppm over the last 150-200 years.
I do agree with you that there is no glass ceiling round the Earth.
If you want to generate a halting problem in someone claiming that a large percentage of species have gone extinct due to climate change, ask them to name one.
The BBC are CLIMATE ACTIVISTS. They claim to be reporting on science. But in science you question everything, otherwise it is isn’t science you are dealing in. So by questioning NOTHING all the BBC reveal is that they are not reporting on science at all, they are reporting on “Official Science”. You can switch on TV News almost every day and hear of extreme weather, more floods, more droughts, more storms etc etc and most people busy with work and family life will just accept that as truth because they assume they are listening to investigative journalism. But in the real world there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event. ———— How can it be that our National Broadcaster is reporting the opposite of what is true and getting away with it? SKY NEWS with their “Climate Show” do something similar but we are not all forced to pay for SKY. ————-The mainstream media talk of the “Climate Emergency” and the “Climate Crisis”, but this is not the language of science, it is the language of politics. For many of the unsuspecting public it is difficult to grasp why misinformation on this industrial scale would be taking place. They think the issue is all about science, but don’t realise the issue is highly politicised and that there is a political agenda behind it all. That political agenda is the United Nations Sustainable Development, and if there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event then that whole political agenda collapses. So the idea that extreme weather is getting worse MUST be kept in the public’s eye. They must at all times be under the impression that floods and storms will kill millions and sea level rise will drown coastal cities. This is the biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated and I am thoroughly embarrassed that the British Broadcasting Company is part of it.
We’re all doomed
But this time! It’s real, honest!
We can trace the decision to the infamous Jan-2006 seminar organised by Harrabin himself – the actual Harrabin, not an ancestor – entitled ‘Climate Change: The Challenge to Broadcasting.’
For several years the BBC stonewalled all enquiry on who the seminar’s attendees had been, though it was known that the Heads TV and Radio News and many senior executives were there. An internet archive search revealed in 2009 that only 3 scientists, none of them ‘climate’, were there, the rest of the attendees being emissaries of WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the earth, etc.
The only journalist, Richard D North, described the BBC people present as ignorant, having done no background reading or research, and bent on whipping up the most hysterically alarmist picture possible.
The keynote speaker was the Australian ecologist Lord May. He was president of the Royal Society 2000-05 and had transformed it into a relentless evangeliser for global warming. The gist of his speech was that dissenters were so few and marginal they could be safely classed with flat-earthers and perpetual-motionists, and the BBC Charter obligation of impartiality could therefore be set aside.
No criterion has ever been set or even debated for restoring it, despite the fact that many eminent atmospheric physicists – profs Lindzen, Christy, Spencer – have denied that there is any climate crisis.
Wasn’t Lord May played by Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man? Hotspots in the Summer Isles.
Might I suggest some family connection to Dame June?
Don’t the Big Black Cock corporation realise how out of touch they are with the licence payers? Or, maybe they aren’t?
” I’d gladly pay twice the price for my television licence ”
happily stupid from Milton Keynes.
“Brainwashing, corrupt, biased” are some of the more moderate adjectives applied to the BBC by readers of Andrew Montford’s excellent 57 page pamphlet ‘The Propaganda Bureau.’
It should be compulsory reading for all, with lefties compelled to learn it by rote.
I’ve just been offered 450 quid and an apology by the BBC for harassment over the TV licence and subsequently lying to me.
It was beautiful, they thought they were being cute, but every email or letter they sent contained lies.
For example, they said I had no visits from am enforcement officer in 2020….I said I never said 2020. They then realised I’d had 3 visits but said it was “the other department’s fault” for withholding the information…and so on.
They could not put pen to paper or finger to keyboard without lying and it was the carelessness of their lies which was as galling as the harassment. Could have been written by Kirtsy Wark.
Result! But I suspect very few get a modest jackpot but are continually harassed in a Kafka-esque manner.
Maybe 1 in 800? Where have I heard that stat before?
What shocks me is the number of people that genuinely believe all this catastrophising nonsense. Extreme gullibility and an inability to question the validity of outlandish claims make the general population vulnerable to manipulation. When will they turn bbc off?
The people outside of Islington don’t even watch the British Bias Corporation, never mind paying the laughable licence fee. The access to objectivity and the truth from the Internet broadcasting news network has killed it.
Is it true or did you hear it on the BBC?
The BBC is now the Globalist and Government slut, used to control the official narrative with Ofcom, and the Trusted News Initiative (what a joke). Taxpayers are not just funding via the licenses but also through Government spending on advertising. Billy Boy has kindly given them over £12million. Other channels like Sky are similar.
The once proud bastion of truth and integrity across the globe is one of our worst enemies, working with Government and corporations to cause tremendous harm to our society.
Humanity-caused climate change advocates remind me of this –
In the past, in some civilizations, sacrifices were offered so that the sun would rise the next day.
Sacrifices were offered.
Sure enough the sun rose the next day.
Therefore proof that the sacrifices worked to cause the sun to rise.
The media increases readership and viewership by giving constant attention to a ‘crisis’.
It’s in their interest to hype every conspiracy theory about catastrophe and crisis.
Gets people attention and they want to read or view the news stories.
Why has this paper now been retracted?