Manchester looks set to become the second large UK city to
introduce a congestion charge in order to cut traffic levels, with
transport minister Rosie Winterton expected to give the plan a
green light in a statement to parliament.
One in five drivers in Manchester are predicted to be affected
by the £5-a-day charge, said Tony Lloyd, MP for central
Manchester. However, in London, by comparison, fewer than 5
per cent of drivers pay the £8 daily charge.
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Manchester is one of the slowest cities in Europe,
with traffic moving at an average of just 17 mph, a survey by
keepmoving.co.uk found.
The government is to invest £3bn in Manchester’s public
transport system before charging is introduced, in 2013.
There is considerable anger about the scheme in the city, and
transport secretary Ruth Kelly – whose constituency lies in nearby
Bolton West – may even lose her parliamentary seat in the next
general election as a consequence.
Roger Jones, Labour chairman of the Greater Manchester Passenger
Transport Authority, recently lost his council seat to an
independent who ran on an anti-congestion charging ticket.
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By GlobalDataImplications for lessors?
Fleet management and leasing company LeasePlan said the
Manchester C-Charge plans could “signal the beginning of a major
headache for all UK firms running vehicle fleets”.
“The Manchester scheme plans to make use of an electronic
tagging system to charge vehicles entering the zone during peak
times; significantly different from the vehicle registering system
used in London. As yet, it’s unclear if the Manchester scheme will
follow the CO2 based route that the London scheme has gone down in
recent years.
“The danger is that business drivers have to register
separately for each scheme. The lack of any central responsibility
could hit companies hard, particularly those that have employees
regularly travelling in or between the two cities,” LeasePlan
said.
LeasePlan worried that the UK could end up with a series of
unconnected congestion charging zones, with Birmingham, Cambridge
and Edinburgh also reportedly looking into the viability of
charging drivers for entry into certain areas, with the attendant
administrative problems this would cause fleets.
David Brennan, managing director of LeasePlan, commented: “We
need to avoid a situation that sees businesses struggling to keep
up with which charging zones their employees are in. There needs to
be a centralised approach so that firms don’t face blizzards of
paperwork with multiple registrations and multiple payments.
“We’re open to ideas as to who can fill that centralised role,
whether someone like the DVLA or a newly formed central Government
body. But there’s a definite need for it – the London model is
likely to be rolled out in other cities in the coming years, so we
need to be sure that the roll-out is managed and we’re not left
with a number of competing, wildly different schemes.”
Motor Finance Issue: 44 – June 08
Published for the web: June 9 08 15:16
Last Updated: June 11 08 11:18
