London's charge gets painful

TfL stamps on loophole as sweetener is sniffed at

By PH Staff / Tuesday, 10 May 2005 / Loading comments

Payment scheme stamped on

Administrators of London's controversial congestion charging scheme have stamped on a wheeze that aims to take the pain out of paying it, at the same time tweaking scheme in a bid to make its expansion less onerous for local residents.

Wizard wheeze

Businessman Miguel Camacho set up a car club whose members became part of an officially registered business fleet. For a tenner a month, the club pays the fee in monthly blocks, which means members don't need to remember to pay the toll each time they cross the boundary, thus risking a £100 fine.

But scheme administrator TfL has told the club, Fivepounds.co.uk, that the rules had changed. Instead, fleet organisers need to:

Produce the V5 for each car in the club, which adds hugely to the workload
Provide insurance certificates for each vehicle, with the aim of proving that they were insured for business use only.

Edmund King of the RAC Foundation said, "It is totally wrong for TfL to try to stop this," while the LibDems called Camacho's scheme innovative, saying that TfL should welcome it.

TfL's response was that its fleet scheme was aimed at helping business users only.

Easing the pain

Meanwhile, TfL has mooted pulling the congestion charge end time forward by half-an-hour to 6pm, and setting up a buffer zone for those living just outside the charging area, which gives a 90 per cent discount on the toll. Both changes apparently depend on the zone's expansion into west London, according to the Evening Standard.

The upshot is that some 20,000 Earl's Court, West Brompton and Shepherd's Bush residents will end up paying less to enter the zone. Most traders' reactions were lukewarm, saying it makes little difference.

The move is London Mayor Ken Livingstone's sweetener for Londoners in a bid to get them to accept the bitter pill of congestion charge zone expansion.

Those living outside London shouldn't shrug and say they don't care, as congestion charging is on a roll, and looks likely to be implemented more widely. It could come to you.