More than £71.5m of the original £110m pot for the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) scrappage scheme has gone unclaimed, new figues have revealed.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan launched the scrappage scheme in January this year to provide financial assistance to help Londoners scrap their highest polluting vehicles before the ULEZ charging zone expands across all London boroughs from 29 August 2023.
From that date, anyone driving a non-compliant vehicle in the expanded zone is expected to pay £12.50 per day.
After a wave of anti-ULEZ sentiment, along with failed court cases brought by other local authorities, mayor Khan recently announced he would use £50m of City Hall’s reserves to take the scrappage fund up to £160m.
The mayor promised that Londoners will be able access up to £2,000 to replace non-compliant cars from 21 August.
However, Transport for London (TfL) data shows £71.5m of funds remain unclaimed.
The most amount of cash for scrappage grants went to residents in the London borough of Hillingdon, totalling more than £3.2m, with Croydon next at £2.7m.
By far the least was handed out to residents in the City of London with just £15,000 given to van and minibus drivers, and zero applications from car drivers.
Of the 11,482 car and motorcycle applications, 4,748 have been approved after giving evidence of eligbility, totalling nearly £9m.
A lower percentage of van and minibus applications have been successful with £29.5m awarded to 5,814 drivers from a total of 19,043.
Vehicles that automatically comply with ULEZ regulations are petrol cars and vans made after 2006, diesel cars and vans made after 2015 and motorbikes made after 2007.
A TfL spokesperson told the BBC: 'The total of the applications approved does not necessarily indicate the rejection of all others, as while the scheme is live there may be some applications awaiting final assessment/processing, including those that require the resubmission of corrected or missing documentation from applicants.
'It's not possible to say at this stage what percentage of applications are approved or rejected, but an evaluation report with a more detailed breakdown will be published following the closure of the scheme.'
