THIS MONTH the new £10 London T-Charge will nearly double the daily cost of entering the capital’s Congestion Charge zone for thousands of drivers – are you ready for it?

At £200 a month extra it would be cheaper for a daily city visitor with an older car to lease a clean new 67-registration car like a Fiesta, made even more attractive by the latest scrappage deals!

It was back in February on the 14th anniversary of the Congestion Charge introduction that Mayor Sadiq Khan confirmed that his £10 toxic T-Charge, the toughest emission standard of any world city hitting most vehicles over 11 years old, will start in central London on October 23 2017.

It will add £50 for a five-day week, taking the tariff to £107.50.

To forewarn motorists, the Mayor launched a free online vehicle checker on the Transport for London website so that drivers can see whether their vehicle – typically both petrol and diesel more than 11 years old – will be affected by the T-Charge. That original checker has now been updated.

• Will your car face extra charge? CHECK HERE

The T-Charge will use the same payment and operational systems as the Congestion Charge. From 23 October 2017 it will identify whether a vehicle is subject to the T-Charge and the driver will pay for both the Congestion Charge and the T-Charge (if applicable) in the same transaction.

Existing Congestion Charge Autopay customers will be automatically charged.

Up to 10,000 of the oldest, most polluting vehicles are expected every weekday to be potentially liable for the new emissions levy, which will apply to motorists who own vehicles that do not meet Euro 4 standards – generally every kind of vehicle, diesel and petrol, registered before 2006.

Exemptions include fire engines and ambulances and breakdown vehicles exempted from the Congestion Charge, as well as Blue Badge holders registered for the 100% Congestion Charge discount who will be automatically registered and vehicles used by disabled people that have a ‘disabled’ taxation class, such as Dial-a-Ride and modified vehicles.

The T-charge (also known as the Emissions Surcharge) will operate on top of, and during the same operating times, as the Congestion Charge (Monday to Friday 7am-6pm), so it will cost £21.50 to drive a pre-Euro 4 vehicle in the zone.

Making it cheaper to lease a new car than pay the charge.

£130 penalty for non-payment of T-Charge

If you do not pay the daily charge, a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) will be issued payable by the registered keeper or operator. This will be £130 (reduced to £65 if paid within 14 days).

Air pollution in London is a public health crisis and the Mayor has been forced to take hard-hitting action to tackle it head on. Currently over 9,000 Londoners die prematurely each year as a result of long-term exposure to air pollution – while 438 schools in the capital are in areas exceeding legal air quality levels.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “It’s staggering that we live in a city where the air is so toxic that many of our children are growing up with lung problems. If we don’t make drastic changes now we won’t be protecting the health of our families in the future.

“Londoners overwhelmingly support my plans to introduce this £10 charge because they feel when it comes to battling pollution the time for action is now.

“The T-Charge is a vital step in tackling the dirtiest diesels before I introduce the world’s first Ultra Low Emission Zone as early as 2019.”

Leon Daniels, TfL’s managing director of Surface Transport, said: “London’s air quality crisis is one of the biggest challenges we face and we are working alongside the Mayor to address it.

“The T-Charge is a crucial part of this work and will discourage drivers of the oldest, most polluting vehicles from driving in central London. To help drivers we have created an online compliance checker, which can be found on the TfL website, that enables people to easily establish whether they will be affected by the charge.”

Like the Congestion Charge, the T-Charge will use a camera-based system for enforcement, monitoring all vehicles, and is just one of the wide range of measures the Mayor is introducing to improve air quality.

The Mayor has doubled funding spent on tackling air quality to £875million (over the next five years) and will be consulting on introducing the start the central London ULEZ in 2019, expanding the ULEZ up to the North/South Circular roads and making it London-wide for heavy vehicles as early as 2019.

He is also spending more than £300m transforming London’s bus fleet by phasing out pure double-deck diesel buses and has committed to purchase only hybrid or zero-emission double-decker buses from 2018.