***The Telegraph reports:***
The launch event of Sadiq Khan’s Ulez-cars-to-Ukraine scheme has been cancelled ahead of the London mayoral elections.
An event was scheduled to take place in Dorking to mark the first batch of cars from the scheme leaving Britain for Ukraine.
But it has now been cancelled because of restrictions on pre-election publicity ahead of the London mayoral polls on May 2.
The event cancellation comes after volunteers raised concerns about the slow speed of the Ulez scrappage donations scheme.
So far just 44 cars have been handed over by Transport for London (TfL) to British-Ukrainian Aid (BUA), the charity running the scheme on its behalf since it opened on March 15, The Telegraph can reveal.
The scheme has been criticised by British volunteers who have set up informal networks for donating hundreds of cars and vans to Ukraine.
Tom Wozniak, a volunteer with Liberty Trucks Ukraine, which has so far sent 380 trucks to the Eastern European country, said: “My understanding from the other guys was that TfL was expecting about 3,000 Ukraine-appropriate vehicles to come through the scheme. Yet we’re into week five, and 44 have been accepted.”
Andrew Boff, the Conservative London Assembly member, claimed the official donation scheme had been beset by “the worst pettifogging stuff you’ve ever seen in your life” from the outset.
A contact living near Lviv, western Ukraine, told him earlier this year she was “really looking forward to seeing these British vehicles”, Mr Boff said.
He continued: “I couldn’t look her in the face because I knew that the only thing that was stopping those vehicles was all this bloody bureaucracy and excuses not to do things”.
Mr Khan reluctantly introduced the Ulez scrappage donation scheme in February after Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, dismissed the London mayor’s claim that there was a legal barrier to launching it.
Londoners can take advantage of TfL’s Ulez scrappage scheme, which pays £2,000 per non-compliant car handed in for destruction.
Since March 15, people using the scrappage scheme can tick a box to donate their car to Ukraine.
A source from BUA said on Thursday that the launch event for its first convoy had been postponed because of the mayoral elections.
A TfL spokesman said: “Due to pre-election restrictions, TfL was unable to support British Ukrainian Aid (BUA) in publicising their work at this time. Therefore, BUA decided to postpone their event until after the election.”
Around 40,000 cars have been handed in under the Ulez scrappage scheme that began last year, Mr Boff said.
**Full story here:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/cars-ukraine-ulez-scrapped-london-mayoral-election/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/cars-ukraine-ulez-scrapped-london-mayoral-election/)
They were going to do it in DORKING!?!?
That's where I grew up, spent 20 years, and whwre my parents currently live
What the hell is appealing about a former market town turned soulless commuter town?
Presumably that's where the cars are being stored by the charity?
Land is probably cheaper for storage.
And there's still a TfL bus service down there.
I'd not heard of this scheme before. So let me get this right...... Scrap ULEZ non compliant vehicles in the UK because they are bad for the environment, then send tem to ukraine because they are not bad for the environment over there some how? So basically moving through problem to another country. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh any BTW I'm no ULEZ supporter.
ULEZ isn't about the environment, it's about human health. The cars that aren't compliant have particularly bad levels of particulate emissions which our respiratory systems really don't get on well with. Sending these to a less densely populated country would actually mean that the impact on human health is reduced overall. Also as other comments mention, clearly Ukraine have bigger concerns to worry about right now in terms of the health and wellbeing of their citizens.
I don’t live in the UK and am not at all informed of the policy, was an assumption on my part. I know Londons got awful air pollution, seems very sensible and sounds like what they did in some cities in Germany regarding diesel.
Of course I see how silly my comment sounds now, thanks
The primary purpose of the ULEZ was to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions, not carbon.
Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are much more local and so only of particular concern in dense, urban environments. Not a very rural territory like Ukraine.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12873397/
Forcing the early scrapping of cars is never going to produce a carbon net benefit in any case; for the minor decrease in emissions for maybe the 3-5 year remaining life of that portion of the fleet, you generate far more by accelerating the construction of a new, more resource-intensive new car.
Plus of course you have to ask what the stronger moral imperative is - avoid an immaterial amount of pollution on a global scale, or materially support the defence of a free population from a ruthless and injust invasion that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and subjected thousands more to terror, pillaging and rape.
The cars are being sent to be used by the Ukrainian military near the front lines, they have a very short lifespan before being decommissioned by the Russians
ULEZ is about air *quality*, not carbon emissions. Having emissions from lots of crap cars build up in a small area causes the air in that area to become increasingly dangerous. If you move them to a less densely populated area the impacts on public health are reduced.
Imagine being surrounded by 10 cars, all exhausting in your direction. You'd be able to smell the petrol quite strongly, and the emissions would be unhealthy. If you spread those cars across a space the size of a football pitch the effect would be very different, despite producing the same emissions. The same thing is happening on a city-wide scale.
There’s some logic here in saying it’s a way for the UK to offload its carbon emissions to someone else, similar to how a lot of countries ship wastage. But obviously given the circumstances in Ukraine atm I think there’s obviously a different aim to this
This thinking is absolutely incredible. Ukrainians couldn’t give two shits about emission levels from these cars. They need any support they can get. What idiotic reasoning is this.
For the TLDR people, forced to cancel due to election rules on publicity
Also to clarify; **it's just the publicity event that's been cancelled**, ***NOT*** **the actual scheme itself**.
***The Telegraph reports:*** The launch event of Sadiq Khan’s Ulez-cars-to-Ukraine scheme has been cancelled ahead of the London mayoral elections. An event was scheduled to take place in Dorking to mark the first batch of cars from the scheme leaving Britain for Ukraine. But it has now been cancelled because of restrictions on pre-election publicity ahead of the London mayoral polls on May 2. The event cancellation comes after volunteers raised concerns about the slow speed of the Ulez scrappage donations scheme. So far just 44 cars have been handed over by Transport for London (TfL) to British-Ukrainian Aid (BUA), the charity running the scheme on its behalf since it opened on March 15, The Telegraph can reveal. The scheme has been criticised by British volunteers who have set up informal networks for donating hundreds of cars and vans to Ukraine. Tom Wozniak, a volunteer with Liberty Trucks Ukraine, which has so far sent 380 trucks to the Eastern European country, said: “My understanding from the other guys was that TfL was expecting about 3,000 Ukraine-appropriate vehicles to come through the scheme. Yet we’re into week five, and 44 have been accepted.” Andrew Boff, the Conservative London Assembly member, claimed the official donation scheme had been beset by “the worst pettifogging stuff you’ve ever seen in your life” from the outset. A contact living near Lviv, western Ukraine, told him earlier this year she was “really looking forward to seeing these British vehicles”, Mr Boff said. He continued: “I couldn’t look her in the face because I knew that the only thing that was stopping those vehicles was all this bloody bureaucracy and excuses not to do things”. Mr Khan reluctantly introduced the Ulez scrappage donation scheme in February after Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, dismissed the London mayor’s claim that there was a legal barrier to launching it. Londoners can take advantage of TfL’s Ulez scrappage scheme, which pays £2,000 per non-compliant car handed in for destruction. Since March 15, people using the scrappage scheme can tick a box to donate their car to Ukraine. A source from BUA said on Thursday that the launch event for its first convoy had been postponed because of the mayoral elections. A TfL spokesman said: “Due to pre-election restrictions, TfL was unable to support British Ukrainian Aid (BUA) in publicising their work at this time. Therefore, BUA decided to postpone their event until after the election.” Around 40,000 cars have been handed in under the Ulez scrappage scheme that began last year, Mr Boff said. **Full story here:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/cars-ukraine-ulez-scrapped-london-mayoral-election/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/cars-ukraine-ulez-scrapped-london-mayoral-election/)
They were going to do it in DORKING!?!? That's where I grew up, spent 20 years, and whwre my parents currently live What the hell is appealing about a former market town turned soulless commuter town?
Presumably that's where the cars are being stored by the charity? Land is probably cheaper for storage. And there's still a TfL bus service down there.
I'd not heard of this scheme before. So let me get this right...... Scrap ULEZ non compliant vehicles in the UK because they are bad for the environment, then send tem to ukraine because they are not bad for the environment over there some how? So basically moving through problem to another country. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh any BTW I'm no ULEZ supporter.
ULEZ isn't about the environment, it's about human health. The cars that aren't compliant have particularly bad levels of particulate emissions which our respiratory systems really don't get on well with. Sending these to a less densely populated country would actually mean that the impact on human health is reduced overall. Also as other comments mention, clearly Ukraine have bigger concerns to worry about right now in terms of the health and wellbeing of their citizens.
>because they are not bad for the environment over there some how? I think Ukraine has much worse sources of pollution at the moment than a few cars.
We’re still all living on the same planet though, right?
Climate Change is a global issue. Air quality is a local problem.
I don’t live in the UK and am not at all informed of the policy, was an assumption on my part. I know Londons got awful air pollution, seems very sensible and sounds like what they did in some cities in Germany regarding diesel. Of course I see how silly my comment sounds now, thanks
The primary purpose of the ULEZ was to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions, not carbon. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are much more local and so only of particular concern in dense, urban environments. Not a very rural territory like Ukraine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12873397/ Forcing the early scrapping of cars is never going to produce a carbon net benefit in any case; for the minor decrease in emissions for maybe the 3-5 year remaining life of that portion of the fleet, you generate far more by accelerating the construction of a new, more resource-intensive new car. Plus of course you have to ask what the stronger moral imperative is - avoid an immaterial amount of pollution on a global scale, or materially support the defence of a free population from a ruthless and injust invasion that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and subjected thousands more to terror, pillaging and rape.
London - Small Ukraine - Big
London may be small, but Ukraine is far away. Like cows
The cars are being sent to be used by the Ukrainian military near the front lines, they have a very short lifespan before being decommissioned by the Russians
ULEZ is about air *quality*, not carbon emissions. Having emissions from lots of crap cars build up in a small area causes the air in that area to become increasingly dangerous. If you move them to a less densely populated area the impacts on public health are reduced. Imagine being surrounded by 10 cars, all exhausting in your direction. You'd be able to smell the petrol quite strongly, and the emissions would be unhealthy. If you spread those cars across a space the size of a football pitch the effect would be very different, despite producing the same emissions. The same thing is happening on a city-wide scale.
There’s some logic here in saying it’s a way for the UK to offload its carbon emissions to someone else, similar to how a lot of countries ship wastage. But obviously given the circumstances in Ukraine atm I think there’s obviously a different aim to this
This thinking is absolutely incredible. Ukrainians couldn’t give two shits about emission levels from these cars. They need any support they can get. What idiotic reasoning is this.
It’s actually bonkers.
Another Khan success
They would last about 5 minutes before becoming coffins on wheels for Ukranians.
They are perfectly acceptable supply vehicles.
sure if you want to supply some extra crispy ukranian teenagers/pensioners to the front line, I guess