Congestion Charging – Coming to a City Near You?

London introduced Britain’s first charge for driving into a city centre in February 2003. Drivers pay £5 to drive into the central zone between 7am and 6.30pm on weekdays. The move was designed to cut chronic congestion in the capital which was costing businesses billions of pounds a year in lost productivity and contributing to pollution.

The money raised – £79 million a year – is ploughed back into improving public transport. London mayor Ken Livingstone and the public body Transport for London, the architects behind the congestion charge, believe the plan has been a success, with traffic levels falling 30 per cent.

Even the scheme’s most virulent critics have had to concede that it has worked better than they expected. So does this mean that congestion charging is coming to other British cities?

It appears not. In February 2005, about 290,000 residents of Edinburgh were asked if they were in favour of a congestion charge similar to London's. The city council wanted to introduce a £2 charge on traffic passing through two designated zones in a scheme that would have raised about £760 million over 20 years. But 75 per cent rejected the council's plan.

Edinburgh was the only city to have followed London's lead by formally proposing a daily toll on drivers. Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham are all deciding whether to charge motorists. But now that residents of Edinburgh have said no, it is less likely that the schemes will be introduced. So far only Durham has brought in a small scheme, near its cathedral.

The Government's ten-year transport plan assumes that 20 English towns and cities will introduce congestion charging or a workplace parking levy by the end of the decade.

But many local councils have been put off by the huge start-up costs. In addition, local congestion charges will be a stopgap measure until a more sophisticated UK-wide satellite tracking ‘pay-as-you drive’ tolling scheme can be introduced from about 2014.

London’s scheme could be heading for more turbulent waters soon. In July 2005, the charge will rise by 60 per cent to £8 a day, and there are plans to extend the charging zone to the west of the city. This will bring in an extra £45million a year, but Londoners will expect to see dramatic improvements in public transport alongside the increased costs.

Transport for London – http://www.tfl.gov.uk