TEAM ADVENTURE
ULEZ expansion is coming, so Team PC heads straight into the zone
It’s on its way and it feels unstoppable. The expansion of London’s ultra low emissions zone, to just inside the M25, means that many owners will have to pay a £12.50 daily charge if their cars are judged to be above the emissions threshold. With a scrappage scheme running alongside it, ULEZ expansion will see lot of useable modern and future classics binned well before the end of their life… a huge waste and an environmental disaster.
This return to a throwaway culture will disproportionately impact low income families who frugally run older cars as their means of transport. It isn’t accompanied by a slashing of public transport fares, or a carefully planned improvement in services, or an uplift in staffing levels at night so women, in particular, feel more comfortable travelling.
So, Practical Classics is heading into town in cars that will have to pay from August. Heading into the zone to tell the individual stories of those who might be affected. Then, after breakfast at the Ace Café we will head north up the A1, 100 miles to Stamford, 100 years since the A-roads of Britain were officially designated, in an era when the motor vehicle was seen as a ticket to freedom, something to be celebrated by everyone.
DANNY HOPKINS
I head into the centre of London early to find the source of the A1 at Aldersgate, where the asphalt surrounds the Museum of London. The Mitsubishi beneath me cost a princely £100 from enthusiast William Bray. I’ve spent time and effort returning it to health and now it is an eminently useable car ready for many miles service. It’s a prime example of why our hobby is green. Rather than dumping it, as the scrappage scheme would have owners do, I fixed it, and that means the absolutely enormous carbon footprint left by the manufacture of a new car is delayed until a time when this Carisma really reaches its end of life. I make no apology for this kind of car enthusiasm, we enjoy a green hobby.
Central London is quiet at 5am, but I still can’t get anywhere near County Hall, where Boris Johnson drew up the ULEZ plans and where Sadiq Khan is carrying them out. So, I head up the road to Borough Market where I did my very first photoshoot for Practical Classics, a tribute to the film Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The market still functions, but it is nothing like as busy as it was in 2000 – corporate efficiency has supplanted traditional face to face interaction. Progress? Costs have been reduced, but so have the number of small independent businesses.
I head again to Aldersgate in the city where the A1 officially starts and drive up past Angel, Highbury Corner and along Holloway Road as the morning rush begins. Queueing the other
