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War of words over UK Road Pricing escalates as London C-Charge zone is halved – and £230,000 DfT funded TV ad about Manchester scheme is banned for bias to ‘yes’ campaign

The Western half of London’s Congestion Charge Zone will be scrapped – barely a year after former Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone doubled the zone in 2007, despite 70% of Londoners and 80% of businesses saying ‘no’ at the time as Ben Webster of The Times reported. Go here to see how lovely it all was after that – well in theory at least. Go here to see why most Londoners did not want it in the first place and maybe why they want it scrapped asap. Now, Conservative Mayor Boris Boris Johnson will remove the extension after the latest consultation shows that 67% of Londoners and 86% of businesses want it scrapped. Meanwhile, a £230,000 TV ad, funded by Manchester local government and the DfT has been banned by Ofcom for being “directed towards a political end” – which in this case was ‘encouraging’ a yes vote for a government backed TIF transport scheme for public transport and a congestion charge. However, politicians in London remain deeply divided over the latest news on halving the Congestion Charge zone in the capital. Labour GLA member Val Shawcross says it is “foolish and backward” while Green GLA member Jenny Jones says the new mayor’s decision to head the majority view is “bad news for pedestrians and cyclists, and everyone who breathes London’s air.” Conservative Cllr and blogger Phil Taylor says they are wrong to have a “nannying disdain of the democratic process”, and GLA Lib Dem, Caroline Pidgeon says it is “good that that this ill-conceived idea will be abandoned”. The decision to abide by majority views in London is “a triumph of democracy over authoritarianism” says Peter Roberts (pictured) of the Drivers Alliance (DA). The TaxPayers Alliance have just blogged about their ‘active’ support for Roberts here .The DA had also raised concerns that central government and local authorities in Manchester had “squandered” taxpayers money on a biased ‘information’ campaign to promote a package of TIF funded public transport improvements in exchange for the spread of road pricing across the region. But Roberts suspects that the ‘yes’ campaign was hit by a “knock-out blow” this week, when Ofcom upheld complaints about bias in a TV ‘information film’ costing £230,000 to make and broadcast, according to the BBC – and ITV promptly banned it. TC notes however that despite the chasm-like gaps between opinions on about the merits of Congestion Charging or Road Pricing schemes, one thing above all is clear. When a public vote is taken on such schemes around three quarters of respondents say no in consultations. This was certainly the case in the last three consultations over major proposals. These were in Edinburgh and twice for the Western extension in London, – once before it was introduced and now after a year of running. That seems show that ‘no’ has three wins to nil for ‘yes’. All experts in the field say that the result in Manchester and thereby the future of UK road pricing expansion for now hangs in the balance, but TC thinks that ‘no’ will win again – with around 65% opposing the scheme. But of course we will all just have to wait and see…

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29th November 2008 by leonmannings

£23m in unpaid C–Charges could fill £15m gap for London rail link – but that still awaits proof that the charge scheme is not a ‘local tax’

£23m is owed in unpaid Congestion Charge fees and fines by foreign diplomats in the capital according Labour members of the London Assembly. But Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, local taxes do not apply to foreign diplomats, who therefore have ‘diplomatic immunity’ from such charges of fines for non-payment. Go here for latest from the BBC, or here for Times report. Meanwhile, London’s Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson is begging for £15m from Geoff Hoon, the new UK Transport Secretary, to rescue plans for A ‘CRUCIAL’ extension of a major rail link through South London. Mayor Johnson has cut the cost of the East London line extension between Canary Warf and Clapham down to £30m, and is willing to fund half of that but wants central government to cough up the rest – and in time for London Olympics in 2012. Go here for a London Evening Standard report. TC notes an interesting conundrum at the centre of the lack of cash for a crucial rail extension and point blank refusal by diplomats since 2003, to pay fees and fines in road user charges. If UK government were to establish proof in law that congestion charging is not just a local tax as the diplomatic community who work in the capital claim, the cash gap for the rail extension could be filled – and there would be £8m to spend elsewhere…

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20th November 2008 by leonmannings

Are UK politicians right to push Green transport policy now or too green to see the wood from trees on the hard road ahead?

All major UK political parties currently support tough action in accord with the Green agenda in which reducing C02 emissions is of paramount importance. No surprise then that Britain’s government has just set itself up to lead the way in trying to achieve those goals by toughening targets for emission reductions in its Climate Change Bill. Now though a UK academic and former founder of the German Green party is questioning the wisdom of this stance. Fears about the potentially devastating consequences of economic meltdown are rapidly exceeding concerns about global warming or changing the way that polar ice caps melt – in just about every other developed nation. Cutting C02 to the extent that UK politicians aspire to may be inline with laudable theory, but the question of whether the action required is economically sustainable in practice is commanding a rapidly expanding level of attention. A financial crisis throughout the developed world has triggered a significant cooling in enthusiasm for international commitment to replacing the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations meeting in December, that Sir Nicholas Stern described as; “the most important meeting since the Second World War in shaping the planet’s future”. TC notes however that grave concerns about the current situation are raised by an internationally renown academic and founder of the German Green party that spurred the global spread of green politics. These views are reported in the widely respected UK Transport professionals’ journal LTT, in an in-depth interview by its equally highly respected editor, Dr Andrew Forster. In the LTT report the avid observer of developments in climate change and moderator of the Cambridge Conference Network (CCNet), Dr Benny Peiser says: “The political class of Britain is in denial. They just don’t see or they don’t want to see that they are on their own now. No other country is following. It’s exactly the opposite, they are all retreating, whereas Britain is saying, ‘Oh, we are not going far enough, we need even more reductions.’ “Everyone else is saying, ‘Hold on, stop, we need to think. Is that really what we want, is that viable economically? Should we go it alone? Or shouldn’t we put some pressure on the rest of the world? But Britain says, ‘We’ll go alone.’ Apart from the question whether it’s actually feasible economically and energy wise and so on, it’s politically nonsensical.” Go here to see the entire LTT interview, and remember that comments are always welcome, here and there…

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14th November 2008 by leonmannings

Is tolling Motorway hard shoulder use really the best way to cut congestion or a back street track for UK road pricing?

Drivers face the prospect of new tolls for using fast-track lanes or the hard shoulder on congested motorways if plans for this form of road pricing go-ahead. The new tolling plan is being developed by the DfT but seems to be led in practice by Derek Turner who is currently with the Highways Agency – but Turner was also the mastermind behind introduction of London’s Congestion Charge. The new hard shoulder toll charges are the latest step in government theories about how to tackle problems on heavily congested sections of motorways. Go here for a news report and here to see all that the DfT has published so far about plans for single lane tolling schemes. With Derek’s help, the government is now in favour of allowing drivers to use hard shoulders in conjunction with ATM (active traffic management) especially as it offers a far cheaper alternative to motorway widening. But road pricing advocates have pushed government towards the next step of adding a charge for using the hard shoulder as a useful extra part of the ‘Demand Management’ approach to ‘solving’ congestion problems. But TC wonders who will benefit most from hard shoulder tolls. Will the speed and efficiency of inter-urban road transport really increase or will government reap most reward as a new source of revenue comes on stream? Today, A DFT spokesman tells TC that they are at a “very early stage of looking at options for managing demand on new motorway capacity, including tolled lanes and car sharing lanes” – and added that new primary legislation would be needed before any tolled lanes could be introduced – “even on a trial basis.”

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7th November 2008 by leonmannings

Stop the Charge of the C-Charging brigade in Manchester say a new cross party group - as cost caps change to diffuse opposition

A new ‘Stop the Charge’ battalion of cross-party MPs, Councillors and businesses has joined the escalating fight in Manchester over plans to introduce an 80 sq ml Congestion Charge zone which, if it goes ahead, would be the biggest urban Road Pricing scheme in the world. The new coalition was announced today after last-minute changes were made to charging plans in an attempt to diffuse opposition to the proposed new road tolls. The price cap cuts for multiple journeys across the charging cordons in one day coincided with publication of MORI poll data. Results showed that more of the 81,000 respondents in consultations expressed ‘negative’ views than ‘positive’ones. Go here for a Manchester Evening News report on the ensuing ‘row’ over the poll or to David Ottwell’s blog for for comment on significance of results. For FT report on pricing changes go here – and see ‘more…’ below for the coalition news release. Assembly of the coalition also precedes confirmation of the controversial wording on voting slips for an imminent referendum on the TIF bid plans *which objectors nearly scuppered in a “fractious” meeting on Friday* – and as fresh concerns emerge to fuel the looming row over what will count as a the demonstration of public ‘acceptance’ of new road user tolls that is a TIF Bid condition for sanctioning a £2.75bn loans package to improve public transport. See ‘more’ below for news release on latest wording. TC can however also reveal disturbing and ironic twists in this tale. The ‘Big Bang’ Metrolink Tram extension plans at the heart of the ‘new’ TIF bid proposals is not new at all. It was actually a development that central government encouraged until 2005, when the Transport Minister at the time, Alistair Darling, ended talks on funding it. But that move then neatly set the stage for PM Blair to revisit the proposals later that year with “100 per cent support”, and a desire to “sit down with people in Manchester and work out proper plans that give you the three and a half lines you want”. Then, the real issue Blair said was “increasingly going to be less about the money than getting a viable plan”, but he shrewdly avoided using the ‘C’ word. Go here for Manchester Evening News report back then. Now, coalition member and Labour MP Graham Stringer is still opposed to the charging scheme plans despite recent changes and says the proposed Congestion Charge “will simply tax people off the roads without improving public transport in any meaningful way in many, many areas” adding that “the people of Greater Manchester should reject the current Transport Innovation Fund scheme by voting no.” But TC also learns today that the new opposing coalition includes the Conservative Leader of Trafford Council, Susan Williams, and that it was her declaration to stand for election as MP for Bolton West, against former Transport Minister Ruth Kelly, that clinched Kelly’s decision to stand down – not just from her transport job but as a Manchester MP. In confirmation of a previous TC report on this saga, Sean Corker of MAART tells us that in his view: Kelly saw the writing on the wall after the key C-Charge protagonist Roger Jones lost his council seat – but when the Trafford leader and vociferous charging opponent Williams said she would stand against Kelly, “that was the final straw that made the former cabinet member decide to stand down from politics altogether rather than suffer what seemed like an inevitable and an acutely embarrassing defeat, for her and Browns Labour government, and all because of her [Kelly’s] support for congestion charging which most people in Briatin don’t want – including most of of her constituents ” . Read More »

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30th October 2008 by leonmannings
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