Bold move a faller at first cordon

IF there was anywhere in Scotland where people might have been convinced to accept the need to pay a congestion charge, it was Edinburgh.

Four out of ten people living in the city don't have access to a car and the proportion of bus passengers is the highest of any city in the UK.

People in the Lothians are also environmentally aware, having voted in the UK's first Green parliamentarian, Robin Harper, in the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections.

Throw in a history of poor investment in public transport, a huge increase in traffic levels - up 60 per cent in the last 20 years and forecast to increase another 50 per cent in the next 20 - and worryingly high rates of air pollution at city centre hotspots, and council leaders looked like they stood at least a chance of persuading people that road tolls were, if not exactly desirable, then a necessary evil.

Inevitable

But today all hope of a "yes" vote was extinguished by the announcement of the congestion charging referendum result, confirming the end of the road for tolls in the city for the foreseeable future. By the time the result was announced, a "no" vote seemed inevitable. But there had been some early justification for optimism on the part of the city's political leaders.

While there is no precedent anywhere in the world for public support for tolls before a congestion charging scheme was introduced, a consultation commissioned by the city council in 2002 suggested that a narrow majority - 51 per cent - would be in favour of an inner city cordon.

The results had been - controversially - weighted to take more account of the views of non-car owners, and before weighting, the majority in favour of the tolls was only 42 per cent.

But when added to the relative success of the London tolls scheme, while substantially different from that proposed for Edinburgh, city leaders were still confident they could convince the doubters and introduce a 2 toll by 2006.

They argued tolls would cut congestion to "school holiday" levels and raise an estimated 760 million for public transport improvements, including a third tram line to the Royal Infirmaryand more frequent bus services.

Just a few days before voting began in the Edinburgh referendum, an independent poll commissioned by the Evening News suggested that most people in the city now agree there is a problem with congestion - 65 per cent said it was "definitely" an issue, and another 17 per cent said it was "possibly" a problem. However, the same poll, which was carried out by Scottish Opinion, also found that only one in five people planned to back the tolls. The survey results also implied that the council would have stood a chance of winning if the tolls scheme had been restricted to the city centre.

It seemed the council had convinced people there was a problem, but not that they had the right solution. So what went wrong? The biggest problem was that people were being asked to pay to drive into their own city or city centre. For the majority of people to vote "yes", a significant number of drivers would have had to vote for what the council argued was the greater good.

Opponents of the tolls scheme were also able to play on the city council's "anti-car" reputation and brand the tolls as another tax on the motorist. Retailers expressed very valid concerns that shoppers would be driven away from the city centre - a trend which the council's policy of supporting out-of-town shopping centres did nothing to reverse.

The council's recent admission that the over-zealous enforcement of parking regulations had been "too tough" came too late to convince cynical motorists who believed they were being unfairly targeted.

Critics also argued that the double-cordon scheme was too complicated. While drivers would only have paid once, no matter how many times they crossed the cordons, there was widespread confusion about when the cordons would operate, and about a number of anomalies, such as city centre residents paying to drive home.

There were also concerns that the so-called "doughnut" between the two cordons would be prone to rat-running as drivers sought to avoid the tolls, and a sense of injustice that residents of rural west Edinburgh would be exempt.

Even ardent supporters of congestion charging were surprised by the council's decision to go for two cordons. Professor David Begg, the former Edinburgh transport leader, who now chairs the Commission for Integrated Transport, described the inclusion of the outer cordon as "brave".

Ultimately, the decision to put the scheme to the public vote in the first place may have been the fatal flaw in the council's strategy. The wisdom of the referendum has been called into question by critics, including former city council leader Keith Geddes and London tolls consultant Derek Turner.

To be fair to the city council leaders, the legislation which empowers Scottish local authorities to bring forward congestion charging schemes is framed differently from that which was passed in England. London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, had greater power, as well as a stronger will, to push through his scheme quickly, while Edinburgh's leaders have been required by the Executive to show "clear public support" for tolls. A referendum defeat makes this impossible.

But the decision to hold the referendum was political expediency. In the 2003 local elections, Labour retained control of the city council by just nine votes in the Fountainbridge ward. Combined with the backlash over Iraq, if road tolls had been more central to their campaign it seems clear they would have lost - and then of course, they could not have proceeded with congestion charging at all.

The Edinburgh experience has been watched closely by other cities across the UK and beyond: Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester, Southampton and Dublin are all considering a congestion charging scheme. Stockholm will introduce a city centre toll this summer but will hold a referendum after a trial period, to allow the public to decide whether the benefits are worth the cost.

With hindsight, the Stockholm solution may seem a better option for other cities considering a tolls scheme. But if the public votes "no" after tolls are introduced, local politicians could still be left with egg on their faces - and a large bill for the tolls technology installed.

The Government is exploring the possibility of a national road pricing scheme which would charge motorists according to mileage, time of day and the class of road they drive on.

Such a scheme is said to be at least a decade away, but many transport experts and political commentators agree that some form of congestion charging is probably inevitable.

With the introduction of proportional representation, it is unlikely that Labour will retain overall control of the city council at the next local elections in 2007 and the most likely scenario is that they would enter a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Since the Lib Dems support the principle of congestion charging, provided public transport alternatives are in place first, a Labour-Lib Dem coalition could bring forward an alternative scheme.

Writing in this newspaper today, former city council leader Keith Geddes says "like it or not, in the long-term congestion charging will be back on Edinburgh's transport agenda". And with congestion forecast to increase by 50 per cent in the next two decades, the pressure on city leaders to come up with viable solutions to our transport woes will not go away.