Catch up on the latest environmental news from across the county with Abby Hook.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Good evening and welcome to Kent on Climate Live on KMTV.
00:19 I'm Abbey Hook and in this show we discuss
00:22 all things related to environmental issues in the county.
00:25 We ask how is climate change impacting Kent?
00:27 What are communities in the county doing to tackle it?
00:30 And how can you help at home?
00:32 Each week we take a deep dive
00:33 into a new environmental issue in the county.
00:36 But first tonight, thousands of businesses,
00:39 residents and commuters say their disappointed
00:41 ultra-low emission zone won't be challenged
00:43 by the government.
00:45 In little less than a week,
00:46 EULAs will be expanded to the Kent border,
00:48 seeing all non-compliant vehicles paying £12.50 a day
00:52 to enter the zone.
00:53 The Mayor of London has defended the controversial scheme
00:55 saying the policy is needed to clean up
00:57 London's toxic air pollution.
01:00 Well, our reporter Gabriel Morris joins us live
01:02 from what will be that EULAs border.
01:05 And as you can see, it's busy with traffic behind you.
01:07 - Yeah, Abbey, the traffic is building up.
01:11 It's just gone six o'clock.
01:12 This is the heat of rush hour.
01:14 That is in just a little less than a week's time
01:16 where any motorist in a non-compliant vehicle
01:19 will be charged £12.50.
01:21 Well, a little bit about where we are, Abbey.
01:23 We're just a couple of 100 metres
01:25 into the London border.
01:26 The Kent border is just a couple of 100 metres back that way.
01:29 So, this EULAs border is coming basically right down to,
01:32 right to the Kent border.
01:34 Now, it's to tackle the environmental issues
01:38 that the Mayor of London says is in London.
01:40 He says there's toxic air.
01:42 He says more than 4,000 Londoners die prematurely
01:46 each year due to the air.
01:47 Now, in 2020, national figures show that 24%
01:51 of total greenhouse gas emissions come from transport.
01:54 So, you can start to see why the Mayor of London
01:56 might want to tackle this.
01:58 And there was a thought that the government
02:00 might want to block this, but it's not going to happen now.
02:05 So, in a little less than a week,
02:08 motorists will be charged £12.50 in it
02:10 if they are in non-compliant cars.
02:11 Now, these are the oldest vehicles.
02:13 On average, not an exact science on this,
02:16 but for diesel cars, it's pre-2015
02:19 and early noughties for petrol unleaded, for unleaded cars.
02:24 But it has been a polarising issue.
02:27 Some people have said,
02:29 well, expanding the ULEZ to the Kent border,
02:32 well, that's just going to impact their businesses,
02:34 as I've been finding out.
02:36 Less than a week to go.
02:38 The ultra-low emission zone will see
02:40 all non-compliant vehicles paying a £12.50 daily fee.
02:45 This residential road is right on the edge of the ULEZ zone.
02:49 For houses on this side, they're in Bexley.
02:51 They have access to a scrappage scheme.
02:53 For the houses on that side, they're in Dartford Borough Council.
02:56 There's no scrappage scheme for them
02:58 and it's not going down well with locals.
03:00 This carpenter says 80% of his business is in London.
03:04 He has had to take out a £10,000 loan to buy a new van.
03:09 I have to go into the ULEZ just to get to the yard.
03:14 Hence, why I had to change my van.
03:17 I wanted to go away on holiday this year,
03:19 but I can't afford that now.
03:22 So the kids lose out, as well as me and the missus.
03:26 But no choice.
03:28 There was nothing wrong with my old van.
03:29 It wasn't ULEZ compliant,
03:31 but why should I have to get a van just to go to work?
03:36 It's wrong. I'm self-employed.
03:38 Many other businesses have had to do the same.
03:41 What this is, is a tax.
03:43 It's not a genuine commitment to tackle air pollution and air quality.
03:47 It's a tax. It's a tax on the motorists.
03:49 It's a tax on small business people.
03:52 And it's going to mean that businesses will struggle.
03:54 We've already seen in our latest business confidence index,
03:57 confidence has slumped.
03:58 So I'm afraid there's little good news with the introduction of ULEZ.
04:03 And if it's causing so much fuss, why is it going ahead?
04:06 Air pollution and the climate crisis are the most serious public health
04:10 and environmental threats we face.
04:13 In a statement, the mayor says it's to reduce toxic air,
04:16 with around 4,000 Londoners dying prematurely each year due to air pollution.
04:21 And a Kent doctor says there might be some truth in this.
04:25 Of course, people don't sort of die of just pollution.
04:28 Well, those deaths are things like heart disease, lung disease,
04:31 and pollution even gets into things like kidneys and livers and so on.
04:35 And so they're dying of other things,
04:36 but that's the prediction as to the effect of pollution.
04:39 Nine out of 10 cars in outer London are already ULEZ compliant,
04:44 according to the mayor.
04:46 And cameras have already been put up on the Kent border
04:48 ahead of the expansion next week.
04:51 But many vandalised.
04:53 And some motorists are concerned about the lack of signage.
04:57 Kent County Council, along with other home counties,
04:59 are not allowing Transport for London access to their highways.
05:03 We continue to reject the moves by Transport for London
05:08 to put their signage on our highways,
05:11 and that remains a source of frustration and anger to us
05:14 that, frankly, the mayor and Transport for London
05:18 are imposing a whole series of burdens on Kent residents.
05:22 It seems there'll be no last-minute challenge to ULEZ.
05:25 But Transport for London say councils have a responsibility
05:28 to ensure residents are aware of ULEZ.
05:32 Gabriel Morris for KNTV in Dartford.
05:36 Earlier, I put many questions residents may be having
05:38 to the Conservative leader of Dartford Borough Council, Jeremy Kite.
05:42 Jeremy, we know you don't support the expansion,
05:45 but with less than a week to go, it seems it's happening.
05:48 So what are you actually going to do to support your residents now?
05:53 Well, I think you're right. It's very disappointing.
05:55 We learned today that the government have been trying to find
05:58 legal ways to stop it, and they've been advised that it's not possible.
06:01 The mayor does have the power to do it,
06:03 though not, of course, my view, the moral authority to do it.
06:06 I think what we've got to do now is to keep on hoping
06:08 that the mayor will see sense, that he might even at this late stage
06:12 pull away from it or at the very least, perhaps even offer some help
06:16 to the residents of Kent and the home counties,
06:19 tens of thousands of them who will be facing real hardship now.
06:22 The mayor says the whole the whole policy behind this,
06:25 as you know, we've spoken to you before, it's to clean up toxic air
06:28 that the mayor says kills 4000 people.
06:31 Surely we need policies like this.
06:34 How else can we do it on such a big scale?
06:39 Well, you need policies that convert dirty vehicles into cleaner ones.
06:44 And that's exactly what we have.
06:45 And the mayor can't have it both ways.
06:47 He can't on the one hand say this new charge is only going to affect
06:51 a very small number of people.
06:52 And on the same hand, say it's going to have a massive effect on air quality.
06:56 We know now that nine out of 10 vehicles are compliant.
06:59 It is those 10 percent of vehicles that we're really concerned about.
07:02 And for those people, they're the ones least likely to be able to pay.
07:06 But we know for sure that in three to four years, those people will be
07:10 converting to cleaner and greener vehicles as their own vehicles
07:14 come to the end of their natural life.
07:15 And how do we know that?
07:16 Because the mayor says so himself.
07:19 He's only budgeting for four years of revenue from this tax.
07:22 He knows we're inexorably on the road to cleaner, greener vehicles.
07:26 What he's trying to do is to try to make a load of money right at the tail end of it.
07:30 This country has got some fantastic green policies that are heading us
07:34 towards cleaner, greener vehicles.
07:35 And I'm afraid this kind of thing by the mayor cynically makes people very
07:39 suspicious that instead of being clean, these and green,
07:43 these policies are actually just mean and about money.
07:47 So practically putting in such a huge, as I said before, such a widespread
07:53 compliance, the EULA zone, expanding it out is to impact more people.
07:57 Practically, if I was to ask you today, what are you going to implement right now?
08:01 What would you do that in your eyes is better than what the mayor's done?
08:06 I would use the money now to actually say to people, here's a subsidy for you
08:11 to move quicker to cleaner and greener vehicles.
08:14 Let's make green energy.
08:16 Let's make green behaviour a positive thing, not a negative thing.
08:20 He is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on EULAs when he could be saying
08:23 to people at the lower end of the income scale, look, here's a voucher for you
08:28 for a thousand pounds to enable you to change your car quicker.
08:32 But I'm not going to penalise you in the meantime because you can't afford a new vehicle.
08:36 I'm going to say to you, here's an encouragement to move towards cleaner and greener vehicles.
08:40 That's what people are doing. As I say, he can't do it both ways.
08:43 He can't say on the one hand...
08:44 Would that be quick enough, though, if we need to tackle toxic air now,
08:47 would that policy be quick enough to do that?
08:50 We've battled this EULAs and the expansion for so long.
08:53 It's been talked about for so long. We've spoken about it here.
08:57 If what you're saying, would that have an impact quick enough to tackle this toxic air pollution?
09:03 Well, the mayor's own figures, Abi, show that he expects to only get four years worth of revenue from this.
09:09 That's his figures. He runs out of revenue from this tax in four years' time.
09:14 So by his own words, really, he's saying that we're already very close to that.
09:18 The impact of this is not going to make a huge difference to air quality.
09:22 We should be looking at other things, planting schemes, moving to more cleaner
09:26 and greener energy in other parts of our society. That's what we should be doing.
09:30 What he's doing here, nobody really doubts it now.
09:32 He's just penalising the 10% of people who can't afford to change their vehicles because he wants them to do it now.
09:39 And that's completely unfair. We are moving towards a much cleaner and greener society.
09:45 Dartford's playing its part. Every council in the country is working really hard.
09:48 It's on the agenda like it's never been before.
09:51 And I don't think these kind of negative connotations of associating it with a punitive tax are helpful at all.
09:57 And Jeremy, something that really impacts your residents is the signage and people coming from across Kent towards London.
10:04 Now, there have been concerns over a lack of signage. KCC are not allowing access to their highways.
10:10 Is this right? And if this does go ahead, surely that's going to be a negative thing for locals,
10:17 residents if they don't know where they're approaching a ULES barrier.
10:22 How can we tackle that? Well, let's be clear, Abby, it's not Kent's responsibility to try and assist the mayor,
10:29 introduce a policy that's deeply unpopular and nobody wants.
10:33 So unfortunately, it is Kent County Council's responsibility to help those residents.
10:38 If this does come into force, if it is, they need to help their residents.
10:42 They need to surely allow the signage so they know when they're approaching. Otherwise, you're going to have bigger issues.
10:48 Well, let's be honest, the mayor can create signage on his land, on his side of the border, and that I think is what he's doing.
10:55 What he's really talking about is warning approaching signage.
10:59 And frankly, if that warning approaching signage isn't sufficient, then it will it will lead to penalty notices and ULES charges being overturned.
11:07 And that's really a matter for the mayor to consider.
11:09 Once again, we can't allow a mayor to say not only are I mayor of London, but I'm also going to impact and influence everyone around me.
11:17 This is meant to be a democracy, not a fiefdom.
11:20 And frankly, he should be negotiating properly with those councils to say, here's the deal.
11:25 If we put in place the measures that will help your residents cope with ULES, then will you let us put up signage?
11:31 That's something like a sensible negotiation.
11:34 Simply saying we've got this really bad policy that nobody really wants.
11:37 Will you help us establish it by putting putting stuff on your land?
11:41 I think Ken are actually legitimate in saying no.
11:45 Jeremy Kite speaking there.
11:47 Coming up after this very short break, we find out how a bug saving scheme is getting help from local pilots to take to the skies.
11:55 See in a few minutes.
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