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As part of the negotiation for a further bailout to allow TfL to continue running, the government want them to extend the congestion charge zone from it’s current small area to be the area bounded by the North and South Circular roads. This will bring places like Walthamstow, Wood Green, Chiswick, Dulwich and Greenwich into the zone. At £15 per day, anyone living in this extended zone who uses their car 5 days a week is looking at an extra £3750 bill on their motoring costs. This will catch commuters, school-runs, shopping and leisure trips. It also affects millions living outside the zone but who travel inside by car.
If you don’t like this proposal then here’s a petition to sign: https://www.change.org/p/petition-the-extension-of-congestion-charge. You might also like to contact prospective Mayoral candidates to seek their view. Sadiq Khan is obviously resisting the change, but what is the view of Tory Shaun Bailey, given that it’s his party trying to impose the extortionate additional tax on Londoners. You almost have to wonder whether this government actually wants a Tory to be Mayor of London next May.
Bailey has no chance of winning anyway and the Tory AMs are largely on the SW, S, SE and E periphery of London and thus their constituents are proportionately less affected by any congestion zone expansion than the predominantly Labour areas in the centre, N, NE and NW.
What is far more politically dangerous for the tories is the story that travel concessions for older people will be abolished as part of any bailout deal. If that happens then several Tory AMs would be at risk of losing, and it would be far more likely to create an ongoing national story than the congestion charge because it looks like, and would be presented as, political spite aimed at the elderly.
Might be the cynic in me, but all these restrictions that the government are trying to put onto TfL will be removed if/when Bailey is elected under a ‘we’re reversing what Labour under Khan did’. And people will fall for it. Unfortunately I live in Epsom so don’t get a say.
I’m inclined to agree with Paul that Bailey has no chance. The Evening Standard pointed out yesterday that most of the concessions (60+ etc) were actually bought in by the previous Mayor, which makes a mockery of his ridiculous assertion that he’d never have made such decisions were he still the Mayor.
I’m also of the opinion that if council tax is raised to pay for TfL then a legal challenge along the lines of the Bromley case which reversed Ken’s Fares Fair policy might well succeed.