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Congestion charging harmful to small business

Published On 19 February 2007 at 11:32:30

The extension of the London congestion charge has been criticised for being a "misnomer" and a "road use tax" by a lobbying and benefits group for small businesses.

Following today's expansion of the zone into west London, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is calling on the government and London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to reassess the existing charge because of the impact it believes the added cost will have on small businesses.

It claims that any extra expenditure for small businesses would cause a considerably detrimental effect to the UK economy. At present, twelve million people are employed by small businesses - cumulatively producing fifty per cent of UK GDP.

The FSB is worried that competitiveness among businesses in certain areas may be reduced if plans to allow local congestion charging are given the go ahead.

Steve Collie, FSB transport chairman, said: "If this is a test case for UK-wide road charging then the one million plus people that have signed the anti-road tolls petition are absolutely right. Any national scheme must be much more intelligent in its design and it must not penalise businesses in their essential use of the roads."

Ken Livingstone has revealed that rush hour traffic has been reduced by 20 per cent as a result of the implementation of the congestion charge.

 

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