Ken ducks road tolls quiz on legal advice

The Mayor of London ducked questions posed by the Evening News about congestion charging in the run-up to next year’s referendum.

Mr Livingstone refused to say what the council has to do to win more support from either the public or the retail sector, answer claims the city council has blundered by agreeing to stage a referendum, or say whether more than 2 a day should be charged to drive into Edinburgh. Instead he hailed the success of his own scheme.

The Evening News sent the Mayor more than a dozen questions on congestion charging almost two weeks ago.

When we informed his office we were planning to run a story saying he had not responded, they sent an e-mail to the Evening News on Tuesday asking for 24 hours more. But the deadline expired without them issuing anything other than a bland statement which dodged all but one of the questions.

Yesterday his office finally responded more fully but claimed that having taken legal advice Mr Livingstone was "lawfully unable" to answer the questions in his capacity as mayor as he could not be seen to be attempting to influence a referendum being held by another council.

It added that Mr Livingstone would consider whether he could answer them in an individual capacity.

We originally asked Mr Livingstone to address concerns the scheme could damage Edinburgh’s economy, tackle the issue of potential concessions to concerned retailers and comment on whether the Scottish Executive should be offering more support for the council in the run-up to the referendum.

Mr Livingstone was also asked to say whether Edinburgh should have waited until a year after the introduction of congestion charging to stage a referendum, as is happening in Sweden, and comment on whether the city council was wrong to heavily promote the various projects it hopes to fund from its congestion charging scheme.

He said it had reduced traffic congestion and vehicle emissions in London and rejected claims that congestion charging has had a devastating impact on businesses.

Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie suggested Mr Livingstone was "running from the truth". He said: "He knows the mess it has created in London and he knows the mess it will create in Edinburgh.

"He is the architect of city centre road tolls so you would think he would reply to the Evening News’ reasonable questions. What is he scared of? Maybe it’s the truth."

Iain Whyte, Tory group leader on the city council, said: "I can’t understand why Ken Livingstone hasn’t addressed any of these questions. He should’ve been able to answer the vast majority."

Mr Livingstone, who is due to argue the benefits of congestion charging at a major conference in Edinburgh next month, said there was "little evidence" to back claims by business leaders in London they had suffered because of congestion charging. He said research had shown just 5000 people now no longer visited the charging zone, compared to the 1.2 million that do.

The Federation of Small Businesses claims its research has found 80 per cent of small firms have lost takings since congestion charging was introduced in London and 25 per cent have had to make staff redundant.

A separate survey by the Forum of Private Business has found 14 per cent of small companies reported a reduction in profits of between one and five per cent.

Stephen Alambritis, spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses

said: "We don’t accept anything Ken Livingstone says about the impact congestion charging has had on businesses in London. Big retailers like John Lewis have suffered an eight per cent drop in sales since congestion charging but the major impact has been on small, independent retailers."

Mr Livingstone has claimed research published earlier this year showed that following the first year of London’s scheme, congestion within the charging zone had been reduced by 30 per cent.

He also highlighted opinion polls which had shown that more than 40 per cent were against congestion charging before its introduction, compared with 27 per cent now.