Many are right to ridicule the Tory diesel scrappage car scheme where only a estimated 9,000 diesel cars maybe affected out of 12 million on the road when the government did eventually release its air pollution plan last week.
The last time we had a scrappage scheme in the UK was in response to the financial crash in to help the car industry when over 300,000 “old bangers” were taken off our streets and highways by the last Labour government in the 2009 budget. That’s more like the scale of things that need to be done to help reduce the risk of the silent killer and major public health concerns over air pollution in our cities and towns but this time solely aimed at diesel old bangers like those amongst black cabs.
A version of this blog was published as a letter in the ES on the 10th of May.