London to penalise gas guzzlers

London to penalise gas guzzlers

By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent

Published: February 12 2008 20:05 | Last updated: February 12 2008 20:05

London is to make the biggest and most controversial change yet to its five-year-old congestion charge scheme after mayor Ken Livingstone decided to go ahead with plans to charge high-polluting vehicles up to £25 ($49, €33) a day.

Under the plans, announced on Tuesday, the dirtiest vehicles – such as “Chelsea Tractor” four-wheel drives and high-performance sports cars – will pay more than triple the present £8-a-day charge and lose any right to the 90 per cent discount for cars owned by residents of the charging zone. Some residents currently paying only £4 a week in congestion charge will see their weekly bill rise to £125.

The cleanest cars will no longer have to pay at all.

The change would encourage drivers of the most polluting vehicles either to switch to cleaner cars or to start using public transport, Mr Livingstone said.

“Nobody needs to damage the environment by driving a gas-guzzling Chelsea tractor in central London,” he said. “The CO2 emissions from the most high powered 4x4s and sports cars can be up to four times as great os those of the least-polluting cars.”

However, Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat candidate for May’s mayoral elections, said the new focus on emissions would do nothing to reduce congestion.

Glad my Chelsea tractor
was stolen

Chelsea is packed with ladies who lunch, writes Robert Cookson. But driving a “Chelsea tractor” will add £25 to the bill from October. “It’s going to be a pain in the neck,” said one such resident, who had just parked her enormous vehicle off the King’s Road. “I don’t know why he’s doing it – it’s not fair.”

Another fur-clad local, originally from Paris, said it was the final straw. “After 10 years in London we are leaving. We are fed up.”

But some felt shamed into backing the mayor.

Nigel MacPherson, who works at a private equity firm near Sloane Square, said: “My wife once bought one of these things. I was embarrassed driving it. Luckily, it got stolen within six months.”

From her four-wheel drive, Anna Milbank said: “It’s a good idea. There are far too many of these ridiculous cars – and I drive one.” She is swapping it for a low-emission car next month.

But others were sceptical. One woman said her friends would barely flinch at £25: “They’ll have a good moan but they’ll keep driving.”

Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate, said the rich would be able to buy new, cleaner cars and enter the charging zone for free, while families able to afford only one, more polluting car would be hit.

Kensington & Chelsea Council expressed anger at the ending of the residents’ exemption only a year after the extension of the charge to their area in February 2007.

Charging zone residents had far less choice than others about driving in the area, Daniel Moylan, the council’s deputy leader, said.

“Now they are being further penalised by the mayor’s actions,” he said.

Around 17 per cent of cars currently driven into the central London congestion-charging zone fall into categories that would have to pay the new £25 charge, according to Transport for London, the mayor’s transport body. The main criteria under the complex rules for paying the higher charge will be that vehicles either emit 225g of carbon dioxide per kilometre or more or have engines of more than 3,000cc.

Only around 2 per cent of vehicles currently driven into the zone meet the standards for exemption from the charge. These are that vehicles should emit no more than 120g per km of carbon dioxide and meet other pollution standards.

The mayor estimates that the charge will remain at £8 a day for around 80 per cent of vehicles.

The latest change is the third major alteration to the congestion charge, which has kept levels of traffic entering central London 21 per cent below their pre-charge levels. The charge was increased from £5 to £8 in July 2005, while the charging zone was extended westwards to Kensington & Chelsea in February last year.