London Emission Zone applies to more than large commercials

Irish Steve

Just a heads up for anyone that's thinking of picking up a vehicle on a trailer inside the M25, as it seems not to have been mentioned here before.

Pretty much the entire area inside the M25 is part of the London Emission Zone, and here's the catch, something like a Land Cruiser, or an Isuzu Pick up, which is the sort of thing you need to tow a car transporter these days, has to be registered with the relevant people in order to be exempt from the charge, and the charge for an unregistered vehicle is £100 per day, and that applies to foreign vehicles, and does not care if it's privately owned.

There is no facility to register on line, some of the process can be done on line, but the vehicle details have to be put into the system at their end, which can take time. The one good thing is that there's no fee to register, and if you work at it, albeit with some phone calls involved, they can get it done in the day, although the web site does say it can take up to 10 days.

Anything diesel powered, and bigger than about Renault Kangoo size has to be in their system to be exempt, and even if it is privately registered, the charge still applies if it's Diesel powered and more than 1.2 Tonnes.

For a larger truck that's not compliant, it's £200 per day.

Smaller machines like the Land cruiser, Isuzu, and similar if registered after 2002 and Euro 3 emissions compliant, (and pretty much all smaller vehicles post 2003 are) are exempt, as long as they are in the system.

Same applies to things like Transit based recovery vehicles.

Nearly caught me out today, I'm heading over to collect a non runner near Heathrow, the car price was right, and the price to collect it was right due to a good promotion discount on the ferry prices, but an additional £100 on the total cost would not have been nice.

Eric Cartman

any documentation on this , might have to do a bit of work in London early next year and was going to bring the Range Rover. that might change.

Irish Steve

best place to start is https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/low-emission-zone

First step is to create an account, and having done that, you can download the form to create the vehicle, which will need a copy of the registration document and they may also look for some information about Gross Vehicle weight,which on a Japanese vehicle like an Isuzu is a problem, as it's not on it.

The completed form can be uploaded, and I used the smartphone to photo the pages and then created a PDF of the images, and they are fine with that.

To be completely fair, they were very helpful and very good on the phone, and I got mine registered in the day, even with the query about GVW, something like a Range Rover or Defender should be no hassle, as the VIN plate has the weights on it. The problem is that the Irish Log book doesn't have GVW on it, (or the older ones dont, that may have changed since 2003), so they needed something else to confirm the weights.

Once the information is in, they were very helpful. so as long as you're in the system, the RR should be exempt, so no further charges, it's the getting it in the system that's critical to not being hassled for a LOT of money per day.

thedeere

We need better links as too much vague information.

Irish Steve

The link I posted in post #3 is a comprehensive guide to just about everything related to the zone and the charges, and how to register. I doubt that there's a better link than that, if there is, I couldn't find it earlier today, and believe me, I was seriously looking, given that I will be in London in about 12 hours time.

NeptunesMoon

What is the point in signing up? If I have a 15 year old Ford transit, does it mean I have to pay £100 once I go inside the ring of the M25 to London? PER DAY??  What happens if I stay inside for 3 days say, is that £300, or just £100 provided I don't come out and go back in?

What happens if I don't pay? Is it like speeding and parking tickets, they can't really pursue you?