An increase in the grant amount available to scrap vans not compliant with the soon-to-expand London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has been announced.
The value of the grant available to small businesses and sole traders for each non-compliant van will increase from £5,000 to £7,000, up to a maximum of three vans (£21,000).
In addition, and grants for replacing a non-compliant van with an electric van have been increased from £7,000 to £9,000, and the value of payments to retrofit non-compliant vans to meet the ULEZ standard has been increased from £5,000 to £6,000.
The ULEZ is scheduled to expand on 29 August.
Commenting on the announcement, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) London infrastructure lead Michael Lloyd said: “These are significant changes to the current scrappage and retrofit scheme, through these extra funds which FSB have successfully lobbied for, and they will make a real difference to many small businesses and sole traders in the capital.
“We have made the case for the messaging of the introduction of the extension, and the funds available, to be small business friendly.
“The smallest firms are often the hardest to reach and so communicating the funds in the clearest possible way, in particular for those with light vans who are keen to retrofit, remains paramount over the next month and beyond – particularly now retrofit grants have increased to cover almost all of the cost.”