Ben Lowry: The outrage over the low emission car zone in Greater London could have lessons for Northern Ireland

The unpopular zone is due to be expanded next month to include areas such as the former prime minister's constituency Uxbridge and South Ruislip. This might seem like a distant row to us in Northern Ireland, but it is the sort of political dispute that could happen in the province if we push environmental restrictions too far.

The Conservatives would have lost Uxbridge if voters had turned against the party as much as they did in the two other by-elections held on Thursday in seats where Tory MPs quit. Instead Mr Johnson's seat was narrowly held by his Conservative successor. Ironically Mr Johnson proposed the Ulez charge when he was mayor of London but his Labour successor Sadiq Khan introduced it, hence this week’s backlash against Labour.

What lesson could this have for Northern Ireland? There are no imminent plans for an emissions zone in NI, where cars are of greater importance to inhabitants than in London. But the contrast between rural Ulster and urban London lessens as you move out of the heart of the UK capital towards the English countryside, where car usage is more akin to here.

The closer you get to central London, the fewer people have cars and the greater the air pollution. In the 1990s I lived in London miles out from the centre yet it was still hard to find anywhere to park at night. My car was of little use if I was travelling into the heart of Britain’s biggest city. The traffic was atrocious and you either struggled to find a legal on-street parking space or had to use an underground car park that would now cost £10 an hour. I mostly cycled but for a while had a car and remember one afternoon, well before the peak rush, taking an hour to drive from my workplace of News International in Wapping westwards the eight miles to Earl’s Court. Cycling would have been faster and more pleasant – and traffic levels were lower than now (incidentally, I was stopped in my car in the City of London circa 1997 after an evening working shift, by plain clothes police, who had spotted my NI registered Toyota. This was after the 1992 Baltic Exchange, 1993 Bishopsgate and 1996 Canary Wharf bombs).

My acquaintance with London traffic is why I think congestion charges and low emissions are sensible, but in very crowded cities. For now, they are a bad idea in Northern Ireland or outer London. Ulez was first introduced in 2019 in the most busy parts of London, from Hyde Park in the west past Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London in the east. In 2021 it was expanded out to a radius of about seven miles from the centre of London. Now it is being pushed out another eight miles towards the M25 orbital motorway – an area hundreds of square miles, larger than Co Armagh.

I am familiar with Ulez concerns because a sibling who lives on the outskirts of London will now be affected, and will likely have to get rid of a car that once belonged to my parents – a 2012 diesel, bought at a time when diesel was encouraged as less polluting than petrol.

I have watched the Ulez debate closely also because I drive old but quality cars. Despite working in a modestly paid line of work, print journalism, it means I cut back on car costs to spend on my home. I drove a reliable 1999 Honda Civic until it was almost 20 years old.

Modern cars might produce fewer emissions but they have their own environmental problems, such as the minerals extracted for batteries. I also think it wasteful to scrap cars that could be used for years longer and I wince at the way many motorists in rich countries like the UK drive fuel guzzling four-wheel drive cars that are surplus to their needs, yet keep trading them up.

Sadiq Khan was accused of ignoring a report commissioned by Transport for London that concluded that there would be few environmental benefits to the expansion of Ulez, saying it would have “a disproportionate financial impact” on people on lower incomes. His determination to press ahead reflected the often muddled view that driving a car is selfish or privileged. It can be selfish, for example when people drive to a nearby shop rather than walk, but cars also alleviate social injustice, by improving the lives of people who are elderly or who cannot cycle or who live in rural areas where there is no prospect of bus routes that match their journeys that criss-cross the countryside.

This is why Ulez was hated in Uxbridge which is on the verge of the fields outside London where commuters, parents or tradesmen might need to drive three miles to a farmhouse in one direction of five miles to a factory in the other – the sort of journey that is made countless times in Northern Ireland every day.

Such zealous restrictions on car usage could easily be imposed in NI. Politicians at Stormont parties cast aside concerns that our net zero emissions target of 2050 was unrealistic, even after the distinguished Lord Deben, chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, told them it would it would be "morally wrong" for NI to set a target it cannot reach.

Supposedly progressive causes are often embraced by left wing politicians even if they are unfair on the poor, such as lockdown, which was far harder on people who had no gardens than those who did, or on those who had to travel to their workplace compared to people in white collar jobs who could work from nice homes.

It is the people on lowest incomes who find it hardest to upgrade their car to an expensive new one, who can’t pay £12.50 five days a week (£62.50 a week) and who cannot afford to sell their house and move out of the Ulez zone.