JEFF PRESTRIDGE: ULEZ Fine for Driver Whose Car Rearranged on the Back of a Truck!

The mayor of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has gone down like a lead balloon for many motorists since its expansion at the end of August last year.

There have been ‘honk if you hate ULEZ’ demonstrations in London, while more than 1,000 ULEZ cameras have been damaged or stolen. Yet Sadiq Khan has not been in favor of a turnaround.

The scheme, designed to reduce harmful pollution (really?), means anyone with a non-compliant vehicle will have to pay £12.50 daily to drive within London. If you do not pay the fee on time, you could be fined up to £180. Around 60,000 vehicle owners – of petrol cars registered before 2006 and diesel cars registered before 2015 – pay the daily charge.

Louise Matz, an accountant from Pinner, North West London, has paid more than £300 in ULEZ fees since the scheme was launched. To ensure she was never fined, she set up an ‘auto-pay’ account with Transport for London (TfL).

In January she decided enough was enough and sold her ULEZ non-compliant Kia for a compliant Nissan Micra. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Office informed her that she no longer owned the Kia. Because she was unsure whether she had any outstanding ULEZ charges, she kept her account open so that it could be paid from her bank account.

Last Tuesday, Louise received her monthly ULEZ statement for February and was shocked to discover that she had been charged €12.50 in fees on February 5 – ten days after she threw away her Kia.

The supporting CCTV image showed her car on a lorry in Enfield, north London – believed to be on its way to auction. After successfully fighting a previous charge because a ULEZ camera confused the ‘C’ on someone else’s license plate with the ‘G’ on hers, she assumed she would have no problem passing the ticket of £12.50 refundable.

But bizarrely, TfL said it was still liable for the fine. This is because she had not removed the Kia from her automatic payment account when it was captured on camera.

In the letter to Louise, TfL said: ‘We cannot make an adjustment/give you a refund as we have reviewed the vehicle image and believe the charge has been increased correctly.’

What nonsense. We already know that the ULEZ scheme is unfair, widely frowned upon and a burden on many hardworking people.

What Louise’s experience highlights is that the program is run by people whose sole job is to generate as much revenue as possible for TfL. Common sense just doesn’t come in. If you’ve done the same as Louise and jettisoned your non-compliant ULEZ car in favor of one that gets Mr Khan’s seal of approval, don’t forget to remove your old engine from TfL’s. automatic payment service.

I have discussed Louise’s case with TfL and will report back when I receive a response. Hopefully TfL will see the madness of his actions and repay Louise the money it was not allowed to take from her.

The beautiful buildings you can rely on…

Thank you very much to all those dear readers who have taken the trouble in recent days to nominate their most eye-catching bank branch – still open, closed (for good) or repurposed.

This follows a trip earlier this month to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, where I came across a beautiful HSBC branch whose roots date back to 1810, when it was home to Stratford Old Bank. An imposing Victorian Gothic building that still takes your breath away to this day.

Some of the photos you submitted of local chapters were breathtaking, confirming how important they once were to the communities they served. Many were – and remain – grandiose buildings that dominated the streets.

Although space prevents me from showing all these beautiful examples of architectural banking, three caught my eye. The first is Royal Bank of Scotland’s flagship branch in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh – brought forward by 49-year-old actuary Kirsten Watt, who lives in Perth.

Kirsten used to work for the insurance branch of RBS, in a building close to the branch. “I loved going in there at lunch,” she remembers, “and marveling at the size of the banking hall, the domed ceiling and the decorative design. I was never bored.’

High quality: (from top left to bottom) RBS headquarters in Edinburgh, Rainham’s The Greedy Banker, NatWest in Burslem, and right, Arnold Bennett

While Kirsten lost her job under the mad rule of RBS boss Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, she soon found work at a rival financial services company. She adds, “A few Christmases ago I went back to the branch with one of my two daughters and was blown away again. It is a fantastic building, both inside and out.’

The building, the former home of merchant Sir Lawrence Dundas, was acquired by RBS just under 200 years ago. Its beauty makes it an integral part of walking tours of the new city. Only time will tell whether it will remain an integral part of RBS’s ever-shrinking branch network.

The second is the impressive NatWest branch in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, a Grade II listed building that has been empty since 2017.

Resident Carol Gorton says the Gothic branch, which started life in 1870 as the District Bank, often features in the novels of local writer Arnold Bennett, who wrote extensively between 1890 and 1930. Carol, secretary of the 200-member Arnold Bennett Society, says Burslem (Bursley in Bennett’s novels) has now lost all its major banks. “It’s suffering on many levels,” says Carol, who is busy organizing the association’s annual Arnold Bennett Day in June. ‘Empty shops dominate. The NatWest building and the old Lloyds branch point to a past when the area flourished.’

Finally, retired charity worker Jill Sidders, who lives just outside Sittingbourne in Kent, says the old Barclays bank in nearby Rainham is now a pub called The Greedy Banker. “The bank had no architectural value,” she admits, “but the name change was meritorious. I’ve never been to the pub before, but I can’t help but chuckle softly when I walk past it.’

Thanks for all your photos and emails.

‘Debt Awareness Week’ is aimed at helping people with financial worries

No one likes to talk about personal debt. Most people ignore it, hoping that it will miraculously go away. Of course not. Unfortunately, debt repayment problems are increasing as many households’ finances are stretched to the breaking point.

Credit card debt – and interest rates – continue to rise, while mortgage delinquencies are now at their highest level in seven years.

It’s time, then, for charity StepChange (stepchange.org) to launch its tenth ‘Debt Awareness Week’ tomorrow.

The overriding message the charity wants to emphasize is that those struggling with debt should not bury their heads in the sand. They should seek advice.

If you find yourself in such a position, please listen to its important message.