Collease warns: don’t be late for LEZ
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RENTAL FIRM Collease has spent more than £3m on new vehicles to meet the changes to next year’s London Low Emission Zone (LEZ), but says operators are in danger of leaving it too late to update their vehicles.
Company director Duncan Scillitoe says it ran two straw polls monitoring commercial trafic into its two London sites and commercial trafic on the A406 North Circular around London. It found that more than half of the vehicles were not compliant to the revamped LEZ changes due in 3 January 2012 that requires Euro-4, or a Euro-3 with a diesel particulate trap, as minimum.
“We have spent £3m on vehicles this year updating the leet, including 20 new refrigerated vehicles to keep existing customers compliant for next year. By January we will have 70% of the 1,000-strong leet compliant for LEZ, which is about the right balance,” he says.
To continue to run more than 30 vehicles plated 55 and 06, Collease has spent £250,000 on making them compliant using Eminox emissions equipment through its sister company Norfolk Truck & Van.
“Many own-account operators have left it too late to buy compliant vehicles. It is dificult to get customers to talk about LEZ: they are so focused on their own business to think about it, and only now are they considering it,” Scillitoe adds.