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IMPACT OF THE LONDON LEZ
Page 22
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It remains a mystery why the former mayor Ken Livingstone focused his attention solely on particulate matter (PM) emissions.
Transport for London's (TfL) argument is that PMs are the most harmful pollutant to human health, but that introducing the LEZ would also result in a significant reduction in NOx emissions because it would encourage the introduction of newer vehicles into an operator's fleet.
A freedom of information request into the legal advice IL received in relation to the LEZ introduction yielded a refusal from the body responsible for the capital's transport system. An appeal upheld the decision and a complaint to the independent Information Commissioner ruled that the public interest in maintaining legal professional privilege outweighed any public interest in disclosing the legal advice.
However, the Commissioner did acknowledge "that the measures which the LEZ would introduce would have an affect upon the owners of vehicles who would become subject to charging as the scheme took effect. The Commissioner believes that the disclosure of the withheld information would allow for a more informed public debate of the introduction of the LEZ."
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (smm-r) believes a lot of the LEZ decisions made by mayors Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson make more sense if they are put into a political context.
'The greatest concern of truck-makers was that they were not clearly using Euro-5, or Euro 4, or a standard European system," says an SMMT spokesman. "There was an acceptance that politically people had to be seen to be doing something.
"There was an opinion that if the mayor really wanted to do something about vehicle pollution in London, he should have applied it to cars. There were an awful lot more of them on the roads than vans and trucks. Right from the outset there was a feeling that this was very much a political gesture."
But political decisions have ramifications, and the SMMT says it has concerns about the impact on depreciation costs: It says: "There are potential implicatbns on residual values for vehicles. There are also concerns about bolt-on exhaust mechanisms and what they may or may not do to warranties."