The legal case against City Hall’s expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) have taken another step forward after the High Court accepted two further grounds for challenging it. According to Enfield Dispatch, five Conservative-run councils had in February launched legal action against the expansion, putting forward five grounds claiming it to be unlawful. In April, only two of those grounds were accepted by the court, with three refused.
But at a hearing on Friday (26th), the coalition comprising Bexley, Bromley, Hillingdon and Harrow London boroughs, along with Surrey County Council, was told that two additional grounds for challenge – out of the three previously refused – would be considered as part of the judicial review.
It is thought that the review itself – which will effectively decide whether Mayor of London Sadiq Khan acted legally or illegally in the way he gave the go-ahead for the Ulez expansion – will take place on 4th July. A ruling against the mayor could potentially delay the planned 29th August expansion of Ulez from its current boundary just inside the north and south circular roads.
The two previously accepted grounds for challenge were that Khan acted beyond his powers in expanding the Ulez by varying the existing scheme order rather than issuing a new charging order, and that he failed to consider including motorists living in the “buffer zone” on the edges of London in the £110m vehicle scrappage scheme.