The scheme enables drivers to receive cash grants in exchange for handing in uncompliant vehicles but is being closed after accepting nearly 54,000 applications, reports Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

Sadiq Khan’s £210million Ulez scrappage scheme is being “wound down” and will close to Londoners in less than a month.

The scheme, which enables drivers to receive cash grants in exchange for handing in vehicles which don’t comply with the clean air zone’s emission rules, is being closed after accepting nearly 54,000 applications.

Transport for London (TfL) said that £186m of the fund had been used up and that the scheme is now planned to close at 23.59pm on Saturday, 7th September.

The transport authority has urged any Londoners still driving non-compliant vehicles to apply for a share of the remaining £24m.

Grants of £2,000 are available for cars and £1,000 for motorbikes, with larger sums on offer for vans or minibuses. The idea behind the fund is that Londoners can put the money towards the cost of a compliant vehicle, to replace the one they have scrapped.

The scheme opened in January last year ahead of the mayor’s expansion of the Ulez to cover all of London in August 2023. It was initially only open to Londoners in receipt of certain benefits and was limited to £110m, but after several months it opened to every Londoner with a non-compliant vehicle and was topped up by £100m.

The vast majority of vehicles submitted to the scheme are destroyed, but since March this year, Londoners have been able to instead donate their vehicle to British-Ukrainian Aid (BUA), a charity who organise for the vehicles to be brought to Ukraine to assist humanitarian efforts.

According to TfL, some 330 vehicles have so far been accepted in this way for donation to Ukraine. Londoners who choose to donate their vehicles to BUA receive the same level of grant payment as they would scrapping their vehicle. The mayor is proposing to donate around £100,000 to BUA to help them to continue to purchase vehicles once the scrappage scheme closes.

Khan said: “I am proud that the scrappage scheme – the biggest in the UK – has supported so many Londoners to switch to cleaner, greener vehicles. Ulez compliance [of vehicles seen driving in London on an average day] has now reached more than 96 per cent, bringing cleaner air to millions of Londoners.

“I’m also pleased that after the huge success of the Ukraine scheme, I’m planning to provide additional funding so that vehicles can continue to be donated to the country once the scrappage scheme closes.

“I remain committed to taking world-leading action to improve London’s air quality and encourage sustainable transport.”

TfL’s data reveals that roughly 60% of applications to the scheme – about 82,000 – have been refused due to not meeting the criteria in some way. Of the 54,000 successful applications, roughly 36,000 were for cars or motorbikes, with 18,000 for vans or minibuses.

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