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PICTURED: Shaun Bailey

MAYORAL CANDIDATE Shaun Bailey today (Aug 14) said City Hall was failing to address London’s air quality emergency, costing almost 10,000 lives per year.

Bailey went on to make a radical pledge to make every red bus electric by the end of his first term in office, arguing that the health impact of poor air quality means that diesel buses must be taken off our roads as quickly as possible.

In a statement on behalf of Bailey, it reads: “As it stands, Sadiq Khan won’t be replacing the dirty diesel and hybrid bus fleet with electric models until 2037, meaning Londoners will continue to suffer the harmful effects of diesel buses for a further 18 years.

“Meanwhile, the rest of the world is roaring ahead with the purchasing of electric buses. For example, in China, all 16,000 buses in Shenzhen are fully electric. In the Netherlands, the government has mandated that all new buses purchased must be zero-emission by 2025 and in Santiago, Chile, the city already has a fleet of 400 electric buses.

The statement added: “Instead of matching these moves in London, the current Mayor seems more interested in funding beach parties and bicycle ballets. On the current projections, TFL will only be putting on average 491 new electric buses on the road every year until 2037 – leading to only 2,756 electric buses by 2025.”

The statement noted that TfL will still need to field another 7,000 electric buses to clean up London streets and that Bailey will “do this by 2025 by using the yearly ULEZ revenues of £127m to pay for 1,814 new electric buses”.

Bailey said: “The current Mayor has shown no ambition, leadership, or delivery when it comes to addressing London’s poor air quality. Instead, he has tried to take credit for the introduction of the central ULEZ despite it being a policy created, funded and introduced by Boris Johnson during his last term as Mayor.

“Reducing harmful emissions and improving London’s air quality must be a priority for any incoming Mayor. Expanding the ULEZ will not address our city’s pollution. The only way to clean up our air quality if to remove the harmful buses currently emitting diesel fumes all over the capital.

“It is completely unacceptable that in 2019, we only have 155 electric buses operating in London[7]. Making the entire TfL bus feet electric would reduce London’s total road transport emissions by 20%. This is the vehicle emissions equivalent of taking over a one million cars off our streets.”

Bailey plans to take “tough action” to ensure compliance by mandating that all new bus contracts will have to factor in the full replacement of diesel buses with fully zero-emission, electric buses.