Home Counties put brake on expanded Ulez

London mayor is warned councils will not install signage and instead thwart the proposed rollout

SADIQ KHAN has been warned that rebel counties in the Home Counties could shrink London’s Ulez area by blocking signs alerting drivers that they are entering the zone.

Matthew Furniss, a cabinet member for transport and infrastructure at Surrey county council, said that the authority would not be installing signs alerting drivers they are entering a Ulez area until the London mayor accepted its demands to help Surrey residents.

Other councils bordering London have also raised concerns about the extension, and are plotting action.

Surrey council is calling on the mayor to extend the scrappage scheme for polluting vehicles to Surrey residents.

It also wants Ulez-free corridors to NHS facilities opened, and key workers to be exempted from charge.

Mr Furniss suggested that refusing to erect signs at the London-Surrey border would require the mayor to create a buffer zone on the edge of the Ulez map, to ensure drivers get sufficient warning before entering the zone.

In a letter to Mr Khan and TfL, and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Furniss accused them of “completely disregarding” London’s neighbours and “pressing on without any dialogue”.

“TfL could continue with Ulez without our signs, it just wouldn’t be able to go right up to our border,” Mr Furniss told The Telegraph.

“This would mean that it wouldn’t be able to put the cameras until further in, which would make a smaller zone.

“If they want to go to the further limit, they have to work with us.”

Surrey has now instructed officials to halt any discussions with TfL over signage locations until “urgent mitigation is offered”.

The move by Surrey echoes that taken by boroughs within outer London that have already vowed to block the installation of cameras.

The mayor and TfL can sidestep these objections by installing cameras on top of TfL-owned traffic lights, or by using “direct installation powers”.

But these powers do not stretch to non-London boroughs, meaning the mayor and TfL are reliant on Surrey signing the agreement.

Mr Furniss said this would only be possible once the council’s demands were implemented.

“The ball is in their court, we’ve set out reasonable mitigation,” Mr Furniss added.

The move by Surrey is likely to cause another headache for Mr Khan, who has faced fierce resistance to the expansion, which will mean drivers being charged £12.50 a day if their car doesn’t meet emissions standards.

David Brazier, Kent county council’s cabinet member for highways, told The Telegraph it was assessing several options, including blocking signage.

The council is considering whether no signage could protect those travelling into London from Kent from paying the charge, as having no warning could give them justifiable grounds to challenge charges. He said: “We are looking at the law there, because it may be the case that in the absence of the warning signs, an infraction of the rules is not enforceable.”

According to Mr Brazier, the council was also looking at whether to support or join the joint legal challenge currently being prepared by four of the outer London boroughs – Bromley, Bexley, Harrow and Hillingdon.

Mr Brazier said that the council had carried out research last year and found that around 50,000 vehicles were entering London from Kent each day.

He believed this should mean that the mayor’s outer London scrappage scheme should be opened to the residents of Kent.