RHA Recovery Group says "Give us a break Mr Livingstone"
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RHA refers TfL's LEZ claims to Advertising Standards Authority
The Road Haulage Association is referring Transport for London to the Advertising Standards Authority over an advertisement for the London Low Emission Zone.
"The advertisement is factually inaccurate and grossly misleading in what it tells lorry operators," says RHA chief executive Roger King.
"We are astonished that TFL should continue to mislead companies with an advertisement, the inaccuracy of which we pointed out more than a month ago. TFL has apparently taken no notice whatever," King said.
The error concerns the emissions standard that trucks above 12 tonnes must meet. TFL's advertisement quotes the "Euro III emissions standards" when in fact it is the particulate standard for Euro III. The difference is at least 30,000 trucks!
Contrary to the up-beat advertising of the LEZ that has started to appear on hoardings around London, the LEZ is a costly shambles of a scheme that will deliver hardly any environmental benefit. How many Londoners know that, by TFL's own figures, it will cost ratepayers £90m to set up and run in the first four years? At the same time it will cost business hundreds of millions of pounds and put some companies out of business.
The environmental gain for all this cost and disruption will be minimal. The introduction date of February 4 2008, which TFL refuses to defer, means that companies are unable to ordered and have delivered new trucks to replace those that do not currently comply. Operators will instead have to convert older vehicles with particulate traps that are likely to increase emissions of NOx - the main pollutant that low emissions zones were supposed to combat.
This is not the first time TFL has misled companies over the LEZ. It sent out thousands of 16-page booklets to registered keepers of trucks, informing them of the scheme and detailing which trucks complied and which didn't. This booklet - which TFL subsequently claimed was not "definitive" omitted any mention of pre-Euro III trucks that meet the Euro III particulate standard. At least 30,000 trucks in the UK fall into this category.
