• When the ULEZ was born in April 2019 it only covered the Congestion Zone. Not many people live there so the furore was minimal.
• In October 2021 it expanded to the North and South Circular Roads. Most people who live there don't own cars so the furore was muted.
• Next Tuesday it expands to the edge of London. A sizeable minority of outer London residents own non-compliant cars and their collective fury dominates the news cycle.
If ULEZ expansion peeves you and you feel the need to vent, or if you think it's brilliant and can't see what the problem is, here are two comments boxes for your views. If alternatively you'd like to engage with the content in today's post, please keep reading.
But not every part of Greater London is affected. If you look at the grey areas on the map above, a lot of peripheral districts don't fall within the new ULEZ boundary. Their lucky residents will still be able to leave the house, drive down their road and head to the shops in a polluting vehicle without having to pay £12.50 a day. And that's because the edge of the ULEZ can't be administratively perfect, it has to be topologically practical.
Much of the extendedULEZ boundary follows, but does not include, a main road. This is to ensure that non-compliant traffic can still circulate around the edge of London, should it need to, without feeding off down ratrun avenues and clogging local streets. Sometimes those main roads align with the edge of the capital, for example the M25 in Enfield or the perimeter road at Heathrow Airport. But more often than not they don't and a sliver of residents get to live on the lucky side, each with the ability to escape to the Home Counties uncharged.
One of the larger privileged clusters is in southwest London on the edges of Kingston and Sutton.
That's...
...two dozen streets in Surbiton - south of Upper Brighton Road and west of Hook Road (0.4 square miles)
...the southern half of Malden Rushett - lightly populated (0.8 square miles)
...most of southwest Cheam and the outpost of Cuddington (1.2 square miles)
...an entire wedge of Old Malden, Worcester Park and North Cheam (1.6 square miles)
It might not sound much, but that's 1% of Outer London right there.
The last of these four areas, focused on Worcester Park, is the most significant because thousands of people with thousands of cars live there. The Greater London boundary forms a notch here, partly forced by a railway, and no appropriate road crosses through. Worcester Park Road nearly does but marginally follows the Surrey side of the Hogsmill River so can't be part of the ULEZ boundary. On such hydrological peculiarities the tax burden hinges. It's great news for anyone trying to drive to Worcester Park's big Waitrose from outside London because it's not in the zone, even though it should be, and driving along the high street borderline is also free.
I went for a walk through the unextended zone and can confirm that it's chock full of cars. These are mostly sweeping suburban avenues with names to suit... Highdown, Manor Way, Tudor Avenue, The Glebe, Sandringham Road. Large semis have parking out front for multiple potentially offending vehicles, as well as perfect shrubbery and nice conifers. Many of these residents could afford to pay the tax, or even replace their car, but won't have to. Perhaps they should because while I was walking down Lady Hay a retired couple reversed out of their drive and drove off belching the worst exhaust fumes I've unintentionally inhaled in weeks, and they'll be allowed to continue.
But it's not all comfortable suburbia. Chunks of council housing are also in evidence, notably in flats leading from Old Malden down to the Hogsmill or across the warrenlike Sunray Estate in Tolworth. Here live hundreds of folk who might otherwise be joining anti-ULEZ protests or ringing LBC to lambast the Mayor but instead they've escaped. And OK they may no longer be able to drive to the shops in New Malden or Tolworth but there's always Epsom and Ewell, and what they pay extra in diesel they'll easily claw back on environmental charges. The shopkeepers by the roundabout outside Malden Manor station must be pleased too because anyone can drive by for a Korean takeaway or a Hooky Street Coffee.
I think the capital's most fortunate residents, ULEZ-wise, live on Somerset Close, New Malden. They're over a mile inside the Greater London boundary, right up close to a junction on the A3, but won't have to pay a penny come next Tuesday. That's because this roundabout, where Malden Way meets Malden Road, just happens to be the only place hereabouts where the ULEZ boundary can bend. The other three wedges are all in the penalty zone so their car-driving residents lose out, but the Somerset Close crew live on the free side so they can escape for nothing whenever they like. A few other non-ULEZ locations are also about a mile from the Greater London boundary, for example in Sanderstead, Cockmannings and Noak Hill, but I think Somerset Close takes the crown for London's least peripheral ULEZ escapees.
Scouring my first map for other London suburbs that have dodged the ULEZ expansion, some of the largest by area are parts of Harefield, the aforementioned Noak Hill, much of North Ockendon, the hamlet of Kevington, Farthing Downs and parts of the Colne valley. But all of these are sparsely populated, indeed mostly fields, so very few Londoners are getting away with air pollution murder here.
The most significant ULEZ escapees by population are...
...north Chingford (1 square mile)
...the Bullsmoor estate and Capel Manor (0.2 square miles)
...north Northwood and Mount Vernon Hospital (0.6 square miles)
...the aforementioned Old Malden/Worcester Park/North Cheam wedge (1.6 square miles)
...south Surbiton (0.4 square miles)
...Coulsdon South and Old Coulsdon (2.4 square miles)
...southeast Sanderstead and Hamsey Green (1.4 square miles)
Chingford and Northwood are particularly iniquitous here, each a built-up area divided blindly in two despite the fact both sides are in London and everyone breathes the same air.
By my calculations about 25 square miles of Greater London lie outside the ULEZ boundary, that's about 4% of Outer London. Throw in the fact that most Londoners' vehicles are compliant anyway and the number of drivers who won't pay a penny from next Tuesday is even higher than you might think.
(tomorrow, for balance, some of the ULEZ borderline losers)
