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While operators wait for a smoke test after fitting abatement equipment to comply with London's LEZ, TfL demands they keep paying the £200 charge. Operators still waiting for an authorised smoke test to prove their vehicles are clean enough to enter London's low-emission zone (LEZ) for free will take little comfort from being in the minority. In fact, it was precisely for this reason that Transport for London (TfL) decided it wasn't going to extend  its 28-day 'period of grace' to anyone still struggling to get particulate abatement kit fitted, or find a Vosa station able to test their vehicle in time.

Pleas for a further extension by the Road Haulage Association at a crunch meeting on 10 March fell on deaf ears, TfL's position was non-negotiable. The number of haulage operators trying to book their vehicles in for a smoke test which had reached the end of their charge-free month was sufficiently small for it to begin imposing charges. The RHA admits the number affected is indeed small it has heard from no more than a dozen concerned operators wondering why they are being penalised by a scheme that didn't fully take into account extended lead times and Vosa testing stations deluged by desperate haulage firms. But that's still no excuse for TfL's stubborn behaviour.

Commercial Motor highlighted the problem last week, when  Marion Smith, co-owner of KJ Lowe Transport in Bexleyheath, said her company was being fined £200 a day until the smoke test for its two Scania trucks takes place, three and a half weeks after it had fitted Dinex filters costing £6,000. Smith had done her homework she booked the equipment last year and had rung Vosa to check what the smoke test waiting time was. But by the time the filters had been fitted, she was competing with hundreds of other companies in a similar position. Result? Waiting times for authorised smoke tests had spiralled to nearly a month.

KJ Lowe's period of grace ended in mid-March, meaning that by the time Smith gets her hands on a Low Emission Certificate, she should have paid TfL almost £10,000 for the pleasure of shifting freight through the capital. Except she's willing to put up a fight. "I have told TfL in no uncertain terms I will not be paying," she says. "If they want to take me to court, fine let them take me to court. Send bailiffs? Bring it on." Smith says TfL told her it would refund her if she could prove she had made all reasonable attempts to comply with the LEZ, but how many small companies do you know have £10,000 spare? As she says: "I haven't got thousands of pounds lying around to pay. TfL didn't do its job properly it should have given more time to manufacturers, more warnings it should have done more."

Dinex says its lead times are currently 10-12 weeks for abatement equipment, and general manager Rogier Van Der Ouderaa thinks many transport companies did not anticipate this time scale. But he also sympathises with them: "It's all well and good claiming back £200 per day, but it's the cash flow implications in between. It's difficult to pass that on to customers. How quickly will it be paid back?" RHA head of technical services, Steve Biddle, says operators can ill-afford to pay fines up front in the hope of getting a refund later. He says: "We expressed concerns about this at the beginning of February. Unfortunately TfL is not willing to do anything. It said it will look again in March and to give it its dues, it did. [But] we could get no movement at all."

TfL says it anticipates most operators who ordered abatement devices will have had these fitted and tested by the end of March. It wouldn't answer whether or not it was more of an administrative burden to fine operators and then refund them later, but a spokeswoman says it will consider requests for refunds on a case-by-case basis. She adds: "TfL believes that these actions strike a fair balance between ensuring the benefits are delivered while giving those operators who have taken steps to meet the emissions standards an opportunity to comply."