I do feel for you Andy G. Once again, just like the carrier bag charge, it's o.k. to drive in the congestion area with a "polluting car" if you pay the charge which would amount to approx. £25 a day give or take. If al the local authorities were really serious, they should look at the number of empty buses driving around all day. It's nice for us to have a big red taxi with only us on it but it really does make a mockery of the stated intention of clean air. I'm think I read that the area around the Commercial Road/ The Highway exceeded the permitted limits on air quality on the first day of the year and that was the limit for the whole year.
Have you found out if the bike place in Stratford can help? As we tend to spend a lot of time in the city, this is certainly of interest to me.