Views on London’s Ulez expansion: ‘Planet and health are more important than cars’

One critic calls the timescale of London’s Ulez expansion ‘absolutely ridiculous’. Photograph: Jonathon Short/Alamy

Since moving to London in 2016, Alice Montague has noticed that her lungs have taken a hit. “Every time I have a big laugh, I cough,” the 32-year-old NHS worker says. “Maybe it’s not that, but I attribute it to cycling in London pollution.” When we speak, she is suffering from a chest infection.

Montague, who has not received a diagnosis for her breathing difficulties, lives in Lewisham inside the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), which was expanded in 2021 to cover a portion of the borough. She cycles around the city frequently and says the city’s air quality is noticeably better than when she used cycle as a student in the years after moving to London.