Monday 3rd of March will see the end of the initial 28-day “honeymoon” period for the London Low Emission Zone – and the start of high charges and uncertainty for operators who are victims of delays in fitting particulate traps.

The Road Haulage Association says it has a dossier of members who ordered the particulate traps needed to bring older trucks up to the LEZ’s standard for Euro particulate matter before the scheme started but have been told they must wait longer for fitting.

Operators are updating Transport for London of the current hiatus in the supply of equipment and they have been advised by TfL that any charges levied in these circumstances may be refunded once their vehicles are compliant. However, TfL has so far refused requests to guarantee that it will return the money. Instead, it will look at applications from companies that ordered the traps before February 4th on a “case-by case” basis.

"This means that the cost to operators entering London on a daily basis will escalate by up to £1,400 per truck per week," said RHA Head of Technical Services, Steve Biddle. "An operator with ten trucks could well be faced with an instant increase of up to £14,000! This is totally unacceptable".

The RHA is urging TfL managers to reconsider their decision to impose charges upon operators who through no fault of their own are operating non-compliant vehicles.