Ken’s Congestion Charge Controversy

Local councilors condemn the Mayor’s handling of potential congestion charge expansion

Tony Arbour, Hounslow's London Assembly Member, is amongst the numbers condemning Ken Livingstone's secret instruction to Transport for London to start work on new congestion charging schemes across five West London Boroughs, including Hounslow and Ealing. The plans, which Ken Livingstone intended to make a key part of his mayoral election campaign next year, have already provoked widespread concern.

Five London boroughs have received letters from Transport for London informing them that their traffic engineers are to start work on investigating if the congestion charge can be extended through West London as far as Heathrow airport. This would more than double the existing area and treble the number of drivers paying to 300,000. But critics say it is too soon to think about extending the scheme.

Hounslow Council's Ruth Cadbury said that charging in her borough would not work. "If they're moving the cordon of the congestion charge into the suburbs of west London - an area with inadequate public transport - it's not going to solve outer London's congestion. Tubes from the airport are full by the time they reach Hounslow. There's simply no more room."

Cllr Peter Thompson, Leader of the Conservative Group said "I cannot see any justification for extending the Congestion Charge Zone into areas like Chiswick. Even to move the Zone into Hammersmith would have a serious knock on effect for the roads of Chiswick. I certainly hope that the anti-car lobby down at the Civic Centre in Hounslow engage in some real consultation with local residents before rushing off a response to the Mayor!"

Seema Malhotra, Chair of Brentford & Isleworth Labour Party, said that the charge would only serve to increase the burden to local residents of living near Heathrow. "Residents and businesses need to use local roads why should they pay more just so that people can get to the airport more quickly?" In addition, this proves the folly of considering a third runway at Heathrow when roads and public transport are already at full capacity".

Today, as the result of repeated questioning at the Mayor’s Q&A, Mr Arbour was successful in obtaining a guarantee that no such scheme would be introduced before or 2006, however the Mayor would not agree to abandon the proposal even in light of a consultation of 1,500 residents living close to Heathrow airport which showed that 93% were against congestion charging, less than 1% were in favour and 6% were uncertain or wanted further information. Tony Arbour claimed that he had never seen such a large response and one so universal in its opposition to the plan.

Ken Livingstone told us in an exclusive interview that it was too early to talk about definite plans to extend the zone. He said "Certainly the scheme has proved successful so far in reducing the traffic coming into central London, and it may well be the case that in the future that we will consider with the boroughs immediately adjoining the current zone the potential merits of extending the zone. But before that happens we need to have a full picture of what the impact of the scheme has been so far and there are no plans in place to extend the zone at this early stage."

June 18, 2003