Road tolls inquiry backs key elements of city plan

PLANS to charge motorists £2 a day to drive into Edinburgh city centre have been backed by an independent inquiry, but it said exemptions for some residents should be scrapped.

The three inquiry reporters also recommended that buses and taxis be charged, and drivers should be given an extra day to pay.

The Labour-controlled city council welcomed the report as a ringing endorsement of its congestion-charge proposals, but said it would have to consider whether to accept all the recommendations.

The council plans a once-a-day charge for vehicles travelling into the city across either of two cordons from 2006. An outer cordon, just inside the bypass, would only operate in the morning peak, while an inner cordon, around the Old and New towns, would be in force from 7am to 6:30pm.

The inquiry report said an exemption for residents of rural west Edinburgh, such as South Queensferry, crossing the outer cordon should be abandoned, as "essential to achieve fair treatment".

Donald Anderson, the council leader, admitted the exemption, which is not supported by officials, was a thorny issue. However, he refused to say whether it would survive.

Mr Anderson said the council would consider its response to the report in December before final proposals are put to residents in a local referendum early next year.

West Lothian Council, which is among neighbouring local authorities opposing the scheme, may stage its own poll at the same time.

Mr Anderson said a decision had also to be taken over whether to charge buses and taxis, but they would be automatically excluded if they were included in Scottish Executive regulations on exemptions.

However, council officials believe charging bus and taxi firms will be a far smaller cost to them than traffic delays if charging is not introduced.

Andrew Burns, the council’s executive member for transport, said the inquiry report backed the key elements of the proposals.

He said it concluded there were no viable alternatives to charging and the 2 charge was appropriate. He said: "Opponents of this scheme need to accept these unequivocal recommendations."

The inquiry was held by the council to help it decide whether to press ahead with charging. Its recommendations, which also include extending the payment period until the day after charges are incurred, are not binding.

Mr Burns said there were no plans to increase spending on major public transport improvements before charging started, but extra bus services could be introduced.

These include a ring of park-and-ride sites around the city and the west Edinburgh guided busway. Mr Burns said it was up to neighbouring local authorities to decide how to spend their share of charging revenue after the scheme started.

Allan Jackson, the council’s Conservative transport spokesman, said the west Edinburgh exemption posed a serious problem for the Labour group.

He said: "There is no doubt that if the exemption is dropped, a lot of people will vote against the scheme."

Fred Mackintosh, for the Liberal Democrats, highlighted that the report expressed strong reservations about completion of public transport improvements prior to charging, and agreed that the timescale may prove unrealistic.

The SNP condemned the idea as "the wrong scheme at the wrong time", but the Greens welcomed the findings and urged public support for the plan. The Scottish Retail Consortium claimed the "ill thought-out" scheme would jeopardise the future of the city centre.

But TRANSform Scotland, a public transport pressure group, said the inquiry reporters had "seen through all the self-interested special pleading from motoring organisations and the more short-sighted of Edinburgh’s business groups".