The results of ULEZ are a breath of fresh air - now we need to extend the zone further and faster

29 August 2024, 16:27

• Russell Warfield is a dad who lives in outer London, and works for the climate action charity Possible

There’s enough to worry about as a parent nowadays without having to wonder whether you can even trust the air your children are breathing.

When my family moved from inner London to a much leafier and more spacious part of outer London, it was easy to think that we were doing our lungs a real favour. But the reality is that there’s not a single borough in London which meets the WHO standards of clean air, with over half of that pollution coming from vehicles on our roads. And the mountain of evidence on the impact of toxic air on the lungs of our youngest Londoners is growing, along with new studies which show these problems can have lasting effects in later life.

Last summer, when the polarisation and debate over the proposed expansion of ULEZ was roaring over the airwaves every day, I was spending hours on end pushing my newly arrived, youngest child up and down the streets in a pram, as many parents of a baby a few months old find themselves doing. I tried to keep away from the busiest and dirtiest roads. But still, I was counting down the days til we got that extra protection from the expansion, especially for the sake of my family’s littlest lungs.

One year on from the expansion and the landscape feels so much different to those febrile, hot summer days last year. We’ve recently seen the six month report on the impact on the ULEZ expansion, and the results are clear: it has worked. This has had the equivalent effect of taking 200,000 dirty cars off the road for a year. More than 96% of vehicles are now compliant with ULEZ standards, and NO2 emissions from cars in outer London have fallen by 13%. That’s a breath of fresh air for me.

But the fact remains that there’s far more road to travel before I can truly breathe easy as a parent. While ULEZ has done great things for our lungs, that’s not the only problem associated with having a city choked with congestion. We know that we need to cut traffic by about a third in London (and most other places in the UK) to stay on track for our climate goals. But the latest figures show that private car use is rising again in England after the pandemic, and cycling is falling.

We need to turn this around. But the ambition we’ve seen so far gives me hope that we can do it.

My first child was born just outside of the first central London ULEZ, brought under its protection in 2021 when it was taken to the north and south circular. Once I’d moved to outer London, my second child had just a few months living outside the clean air zone before it was taken to the boundary of London. My third child, who will be born in a few months, will have the protection of the world’s biggest clean air zone from the moment they take a lungful of breath for their first piercing scream. I’m genuinely proud to live in a city which has driven this astonishing progress on public health.

Now we need to go further and faster. Let’s truly tackle traffic, not just to protect the lungs of the littlest Londoners right now, but also to preserve a safer climate for their whole lives.

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