WE have recently returned from a week in the south of England and spent three days in London, where there is a congestion charge of £11.50 during various hours and a Low Emissions Zone charge of an additional £12.50 per day at all times. This did not seem to have had much of an effect with large volumes of traffic on the Embankment and its surrounds and congestion throughout the city.

The congestion charge does not really seem have any effect on pollution while there is a constant stream of aircraft lining up at low level over central London to come into Heathrow when there is a westerly wind. Westerlies are predominant in the UK, therefore I would suggest that this is a more than common occurrence.

Driving cars and polluting vehicles out of the cities is only part of the solution. Electric vehicles are not “zero emissions” as many people suggest, they only move the pollution elsewhere. For them to reproduce or replace the numbers of internal combustion vehicles, the National Grid would be unable to supply the power required and more power stations of whatever type would be required.

Steve Barnet, Gargunnock.

IAN Moir’s characteristically excellent analysis of the costs of wind-generated electricity which shows we will need to pay an extra £400 billion to power electric cars exemplifies the enormous costs of attempts to aim for a “carbon-free” UK (Letters, September 18). The recent allocation by Mrs May of many billions to be spent in the same endeavour highlights what the politicians have let us taxpayers in for along with deprivation of immediately-vital expenditures like health and welfare, education, infrastructure and defence.

Therefore we must ask, what could be achieved by such huge spending to try to offset climate change to the detriment of vital needs?

Since the UK releases a negligible 0.3 of 1 per cent of the planet’s manmade CO2 output, all our expenses in seeking its reduction are of only token usefulness.

(Dr) Charles Wardrop, Perth.