A judicial review into Sadiq Khan’s plans to expand London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is due to get under way at the High Court on Tuesday.
Five Conservative-led councils – Bexley, Bromley, Harrow, Hillingdon and Surrey – have launched legal action over the scheme, planned to cover the whole of London from the end of August.
They say it would have a big financial impact on motorists.
London’s Labour mayor says the scheme is needed to tackle air pollution.
“The independent assessment confirms that ULEZ works and the expansion will lead to five million more Londoners breathing cleaner air,” he told Reuters news agency in an interview.
“You’re not going to please a hundred percent of people all the time,” he added. “No politician in history has managed to do so.”
The ULEZ scheme requires people who drive in non-compliant, or more polluting, vehicles to pay a daily charge of £12.50 on days they are driven within inner London. A majority of cars driven in London are Ulez-compliant.
The current zone covers all parts of the city between the North and South circular roads, but London’s mayor previously announced it would be expanded to cover the whole of the capital from 29 August.
The five outer-London councils served Mr Khan with a pre-action protocol letter on 12 January, stating there were five grounds for a judicial review.
In April, the High Court ruled there was sufficient evidence on two of the grounds for the case to proceed to trial on the basis that the Ulez extension might be unlawful.
These related to claims there was a failure to follow statutory procedures and a failure to consider the potential for inclusion of non-Londoners in the new £110m scrappage scheme.
Those eligible for help from the scrappage scheme can get up to £2,000 for scrapping a car or up to £1,000 for scrapping a motorcycle. For wheelchair-accessible vehicles there is a grant of up to £5,000.
The controversial scheme has trigged a fierce debate across the city, pitting the mayor and health campaigners against those who say they cannot take another economic hit during a time where costs are already soaring.
Chris Fordham, who drives a non-compliant 2012 diesel van, told AFP news agency the planned expansion meant he was thinking about stopping work, adding: “They’re hitting working class people again.”
But Jemima Hartshorn, founder of campaign group Mums for Lungs and mother to an asthmatic daughter, said it was often the poorest who suffered by living next to busy roads.
“It’s absolutely critical that even in a cost of living crisis we do not kick the can of air pollution down the road and let more children grow up unhealthy and unwell,” she told Reuters.
The hearing, before Mr Justice Swift, is due to start at 10:00 BST on Tuesday. The judge is expected to give his ruling at a later date.
