London Mayor Ken Livingstone today announced a revamp of the congestion charge. The firebrand politician has more than tripled the cost to £25 for the biggest polluters. However, it’s great news for motorists with the cleanest vehicles, allowing all cars in tax band A and B free entry. What do you think of the policy?
At the moment 17 per cent of the cars which drive in the congestion charge will face the new £25 fee, while just two per cent will be exempt. Sounds like a recipe for reduced congestion on the face of things.
But it’s possible many of those driving the highest emitting cars can afford the increase, while motorists who have small cars and don’t currently drive into the city centre will now use the law change to avoid public transport. Could congestion get worse now there’s no fee for greener cars?
Does this turn the current system into an emissions charge rather than a congestion charge? With this latest development will other cities such as Manchester move forward with their plans to introduce such schemes?
Give us your views.
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Its just another way to make money, the way to deal with congestion is, not to start charging people, but to improve the roads, reduce unnecessary traffic lights, have fly overs for a consistant flow of traffic. Rather than introducing another piggy bank scheme, try and use the out of the box approach to resolve such issues. Learn from other countries who have a network of flyovers.
Livingstone how about we charge all londoners
£ 25 each time they come out of london, ??????
Livingstone is just making it up as he goes along and Brown and Darling are even worse once again the good old motorist is being wrung out like a damp cloth to get the last few drips, because of Labours bungling incompetence we are now all left to pick up the bill for their reckless spending on hairbrained schemes, Who sold off our gold reserves when the price was rock bottom? good old Gordon Brown Gold is now $1000 an ounce need i say more Fiscal genius? my foot
i dont think that congestion is that bad,i drive a 500 litre tank and i dont have to pay anything.
I have a conservitive 2 litre family estate car and I will have to pay the £25 pounds. Next time I’ll make sure I get a X5 with some serious CO2 emissions
Taxes and laws like these are simply rubbish, here in São Paulo, BR, a few years ago they introduced a law which consists in banning cars circulation based on their license plate last numbers, for example, 1 and 2 on monday, 3 and 4 in tuesday, and so on.
if you drive around with you car in those “banned” days they stick you a fine
The purpose was reducing pollution but the effect was the inverse with people buying a second car, registering with a different last number plate (ex. my car plate ends in 1, so I buy another and license it with the plate ending in 5) and so more cars in traffic is the result
You say that the Skoda fabia will be exempt from the charge, what about all Skodas my superb is used as a taxi and it was smoke tested from new and it has always been 30% below what the government says it should be but i still have to pay £130 in road tax the same as the fabia.
nearly every modern diesel car made should be exempt from the charges as they are cleaner and greener than there petrol counterparts so why are we being hammered at the pumps
Roberto Maietta ..You’re right there with your comments. Britain is a rip off esp in London, however I visited London last week with the family for 4 days. We took the train from Plymouth £64 for a family of 4, used the underground (lots) cost £40. Sooo cheap. Why would anyone want to drive a car in London anyway.
More the problem is it will creat a two tier transport system, the well off driving expensive guzzling cars and polluting and the rest of us on public transport saving the planet. Generally the well of don’t care for the environment when it hurts. to quote a BMW exec “people go to Cocktail parties talk all night about the enviroment then jump in the X5 to go home”.
I really think cars over 200g/km should be banned in any city centre in the UK along with banning single occupany in any city centre Chauffers shoulfd NOT be included.
Nuff said.
all these congestion chargers are a way 2 get money
i think we shud warm up the country depresion would decline nd we’d get better fruit!
Edited by moderator. No swearing please.
He says that ‘Chelsea tractors’ are not needed? Well, lets give a real life example. We need a family car that doubles as a car to take the dog to the park every morning (its a big German Shepherd, big..). We have a budget of 16K. So… we need a big car. Options (used: Toureg, ML290 (old), Volvo (the big one), Dodge Nitro and a few other big cars. All of these classify under the 25 pound a day zone. It would go into the zone lets say 4 times a week, and thats morle like 6 times. Thats 100 pounds. 3000 odd pounds a year. Alot of money.
Who is Ken Livingstone kidding? Is he in a dilusional world where he thinks he’ll get voted in again? Actually he may be, and you know why? He is pro-palastine. Due to the influx of Arabs, he will be voted.
To all the people who are like ‘Good riddens posh people’ well, as mentioned above, cars that go into the 25 pouns a day do not have to be very expensive, and old cars will suffure alot as they lack proper catylisct converters etc.
Edited by moderator. No swearing please.