London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an additional £5 million of funding to support low income and disabled consumers to scrap older and more polluting vehicles for cleaner alternatives.

Under the scrappage scheme, motorists can apply for £2,000 for scrapping a car and £1,000 for scrapping a motorcycle or moped, with charities also able to access funding to scrap minibuses.

Launched in 2019, the scheme has helped replace or retrofit more than 10,000 vehicles so far, helping clean the air as polluting vehicles account for around 50% of harmful NOx emissions in London.

However, while significant progress has been made, with a substantial reduction in the number of Londoners living in areas exceeding legal limits for NO2 emissions, 99% of people still live in areas exceeding the World Health Organisation (WHO)-recommended guidelines for fine particulate matter (PM2.5).

Mr Khan said: “Air pollution is a national health crisis that is stunting the lung development of our children and leading to thousands of premature deaths.

“Despite the lack of government support, our car and motorcycle scrappage scheme will continue to help low income and disabled Londoners scrap their older, polluting vehicles and switch to walking, cycling and public transport or a cleaner vehicle.

“We need the government to follow London’s lead and help clean our filthy air once and for all by strengthening the Environment Bill to include WHO recommended air quality limits to be met by 2030 and supporting a targeted national vehicle scrappage fund that will help motorists across the UK to ditch their polluting cars.”

The additional funding comes ahead of the Ultra Low Emission Zone expansion in October, which will see the existing central London ULEZ expand to create a single larger zone up to but not including the North Circular Road and South Circular Road.