London's T-charge and the courier industry

This autumn, Mayor Khan’s toxicity charge comes into play – a £10 “pollution tax” that any older and more polluting vehicle – will be required to pay on entering central London.

At CitySprint, we’ve long been advocates of cleaner air. We know that congestion – and resulting air pollution – is one of the biggest issues facing cities today. And we believe we have an active role to play in helping lower these emissions to create an environment fit for the future.

That’s why we support the Make Air Pollution Visible initiative led by Deliver Change. It’s also the thinking behind our huge investment into award winning environmental systems such as our client carbon reporting. It’s one of the reasons we invest in technology that allows our fleet to deliver as efficiently as possible, reducing ‘dead miles’ and therefore pollution.

We applaud any effort to help clean up our capital’s air, but it’s disappointing to see that the courier industry will once again be excessively penalised by the new toxicity charge, whilst some of the biggest emissions offenders in the city will get away scot-free.

It’s well-known that the majority of Black Taxis in the capital are heavy diesel vehicles and combined with passenger car companies such as UBER they are by far the largest contributors to air pollution in London, it seems only right that they too should be included in – and certainly not exempt from – this new tax.

As committed citizens, all of our hard-working couriers at CitySprint pay the Congestion Charge on a daily basis, and we have our own programmes in place to help keep emissions to a minimum.

We absolutely recognise and support the need for the City of London and Mayor Khan to bring in new measures to protect our city from the increasing pollution levels. But we call on them to make these policies fair and equal, to help ensure a measurable positive difference for all.