Ulez rules cost NHS £65million after hundreds of ambulances non-compliant
Each vehicle costs £140,000 to replace
PA/Getty
The NHS has spent almost £65million on making a whole fleet of ambulances Ulez compliant.
NHS ambulance services in southern England have been made temporarily exempt by Transport for London (TfL) whilst the health service changes over from non-compliant vehicles.
Freedom of Information requests reveal that each vehicle costs £140,000 to replace.
The NHS has until October 2025 to replace the ambulances.
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The fleet stands at 534 – 279 from the South East Coast Ambulance Service and 255 from the London Ambulance service.
Tory chairman Richard Holden said: “These revolutions are shocking - even by Mayor Khan's standards.
“Taxing hardworking people to simply drive their cars was bad enough - but Mayor Khan hammering our NHS ambulance services with tens of millions of pounds of extra cost, just to do their job and get to patients to hospital is downright disgraceful.
“The taxpayer should not be forced to swallow the cost of another one of Sadiq Khan's ideologically obsessive vanity projects.”
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Over 500 ambulances have been deemed as non-compliant
PASusan Hall, the Tory candidate for next year's mayoral election, said: “These eyewatering sums show another cost of the ULEZ expansion that Sadiq Khan would rather ignore.
“When our NHS is forced to spend tens of millions to comply with Sadiq's tax-grab plan, surely the Mayor needs to fess up and admit that he's got it wrong? But we know he won't.
“He's ignored Londoners, he'll ignore everyone else - I am determined to see him out of office in May, and his ULEZ expansion will be gone on my first day as Mayor.”
A spokesman for the Mayor said: “The Ulez is about saving the NHS money in the long term.
“If no further action is taken to reduce air pollution, the cost to the NHS and social care system in London is estimated to be £10.4billion by 2050.”
Sadiq Khan’s controversial scheme was expanded in August to Greater London.
The Ulez was expanded on August 29REUTERSThe fee has hit both staff and patients travelling to hospitals.
In September, Khan’s scheme was branded “a sickening ploy” in a letter by an MP who has warned one enforcement camera facing a hospital is putting off patients and guests from visiting.
Paul Scully, MP for Sutton, Cheam and Worcester Park wrote a letter to Khan calling for the removal of the Ulez camera facing the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey.
The MP expressed his disdain at the scheme and said many of his constituents felt the same way.
He referenced one appalled constituent who said that the camera was a “sickening ploy to trap people coming from across the UK for treatment as the hospital address is in Surrey”.
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