The Mayor ’s limited funding is being used to provide a scrappage scheme for Londoners. The £110 million will help the Londoners who need it most, on top of the £61 million he provided for his previous scrappage schemes. On 4th August, the Mayor announced his plans to use an additional £50m for the scheme, taking the total fund to £160m.
Whilst the Government has provided over £127m of scrappage funding for Clean Air Zones in other cities across the UK, including Birmingham, Bristol and Portsmouth, it has not provided any funding for residents outside of London who will be impacted by the ULEZ.
The lack of government support means TfL to date has had to target the funding to help those who need it most, which is why the scrappage scheme is open to businesses with up to 10 employees, charities and people receiving low income and disability benefits. These benefits include universal credit, child tax credit, and working tax credit. Many lower paid workers are eligible for these benefits and, if they are claiming them, they will also be eligible for the scrappage scheme.
The Mayor has also recently announced major changes to the scrappage scheme.
From Friday 4 August, the below changes will be made to the scheme:
- grants for scrapping a non-compliant van will increase from £5,000 to £7,000
- grants for wheelchair accessible vehicles will increase from £5,000 to £10,000
- grants for scrapping minibuses will increase from £7,000 to £9,000
- grants to replace a non-compliant van with electric van increase from £7,500 to £9,500
- grants to replace a non-compliant minibus with an electric minibus increase from £9,500 to £11,500
- retrofit grants increase from £5k to £6k, typically enough to cover the whole cost of retrofitting.
And from Monday 21 August, the following changes will be made to the scheme:
- every single Londoner with a non ULEZ-compliant car or motorcycle will be eligible for a £2,000 grant (or £1,000 for a motorcycle), or a higher value package of up to two bus and tram passes plus a lower grant
- small businesses and sole traders will be able to apply to scrap up to three vehicles (from one).