More than 1,400 vehicles belonging to drivers who have failed to pay the Ulez have been seized by bailiffs.
Of these, more than half have been sold at auction to recover money owed to Transport for London.
The figures came as TfL said it was stepping up enforcement against motorists who persistently failed to pay Mayor Sadiq Khan’s £12.50-a-day clean air levy.
Its enforcement agents have recouped £25.6million in the 12 months to July 2024, TfL announced on Wednesday.
But this is less than a 10th of the £370million in total debts TfL is owed from drivers who have failed to pay the 24/7 levy or associated penalty charge notices, which cost £180.
More than 96 per cent of vehicles seen within the ultra-low emission zone, which was extended to the Greater London boundary in August 2023, comply with the exhaust emission rules – meaning their drivers do not have to pay the levy.
Drivers of non-Ulez compliant vehicles are sent an £180 fine if they fail to pay the £12.50 levy within three days of their journey.
Action then escalates if the debt remains unpaid. This includes obtaining county court judgements.
Between August last year and July this year, 1,429 cars were seized and removed by bailiffs.
Of these, 761 were auctioned, generating £710,147 for TfL. It reinvests the proceeds from the Ulez into public transport schemes, in particular buses.
In May, the Standard revealed that TfL’s Ulez debt was in excess of £218million – with seven in 10 drivers issued with a fine since the zone was expanded Londonwide having failed to pay.
Now TfL is tripling the number of people in its investigations team to boost its work with enforcement agents.
Bailiffs have the power to visit an evader’s address, clamp a vehicle, remove a vehicle and sell it at auction.
In July, a driver with 45 warrants was traced by TfL agents to a new address. The driver claimed to have sold the vehicle, but TfL’s investigations team established that the PCNs were issued while it was still owned. The driver eventually settled a debt of almost £16,000.
In another case, a driver with 21 warrants was visited multiple times by TfL enforcement agents and made a series of payments to cover a debt in excess of £7,800.
In August, a driver who had been issued with 43 letters and been visited by bailiffs five times, had his car seized.
Alex Williams, TfL’s chief customer and strategy officer, said: “We want to send a clear message to vehicle owners that if you receive a penalty charge for driving in the zone, you should not ignore it.
“Your penalty will progress to enforcement agents to recover the fines that you owe, and there is a risk that your vehicle and other items of property will be removed.
“The aim of the Ulez is to clean up London’s air and remove old polluting cars from the road so no drivers need to pay and no fines occur.”
A pilot scheme to offer increased support to vulnerable recipients of penalty charges is set to be introduced in the coming months.
