GROUP HITS OUT AT CLASSIC BAN
Only residents with permits can now use older vehicles
The National Association of Wedding Car Professionals (NAWCP) has expressed its frustration at Hackney Council’s failure to involve it in a scheme banning cars from streets in Shoreditch and Bunhill on weekdays.
Chairman, David Jones, said: ‘As national stakeholder in all Ultra Low Emissions Zone programmes, this scheme has caught us by surprise.
‘We were not aware of Hackney Council’s plans, and will be drawing up a list of all the businesses affected by the new rules.’
Like Oxford’s Zero Emission Zone, which bans all vehicles other than fully electric models, certain streets in the so-called City Fringe will be closed off to classics and other internal combustion-engined vehicles at peak hours; only Ultra Low Emissions Vehicles (ULEVs) will be allowed in from outside the area.
A statement from Hackney Council read: ‘Petrol, diesel and older hybrid vehicles will not be allowed to enter nine streets between 7am-10am and 4pm-7pm Monday to Friday. Ultra-low emission vehicles (electric cars, e-bikes, the newest hybrids and hydrogen vehicles), as well as pedestrians/cyclists, will be allowed.’
Local residents and business can register their cars, vans and historic vehicles via a permit system; those visiting with a classic will face a penalty charge if they enter Shoreditch or Bunhill on weekdays. Converted electric classics like the Fiat 500 we recently tested ( CCW, 27 June), however, would be eligible.
NAWCP has achieved exemption for historic cars before; fearing a ‘tax on weddings’ if free movement in the London Low Emissions Zone (LEZ) and ULEZ was prevented, it received assurances that tax-free classic wedding cars and hearses were classed as historic vehicles, and exempt from ULEZ charges.