Seeing red over 'green' tax (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Seeing red over 'green' tax

7:22am Wednesday 20th February 2008 in

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SO Ken Livingstone has continued to wage his war on gas guzzling vehicles by introducing his latest congestion charge as it effectively becomes an emissions tax.

Of course the reason for the £25-a-day fee is that old Ken wants to save those dear old residents of London town thus helping to save the planet.

It has nothing to do with the additional £50 million-a-year he will rake in.

I am sure green campaigners will back the move and herald it as potential planet saver. The fact is, they will say, more people than ever will now sell their Chelsea tractors because they will not want to fork out £6,000 a year just to drive to work in the capital.

The £25 charge will apply to vehicles emitting more than 225 grams of CO2/km (g/km). But it will also include cars registered before March 2001 which have engines larger than 3,000cc.

This means that any mother or father who has an older, bigger car will be forced to find £25 a day just to get to work. What if they can't afford a new car? What if they can't afford to pay the congestion charge? What if they can't afford public transport? What if they have to drop the kids at school first so can't cycle? None of the above matters to Ken.

The people driving their Discoveries, Freelanders, X5s, Q7s, Range Rovers or Cayennes will be fine, they can change their cars. Chances are they will even keep their 4x4s and pay the £6,000-a-year because they can afford it - but some people can't. Some people are tied in by finance and need their jobs to pay for it.

Those in support will still argue that at least they won't have to put with as many 4x4s, which burp emissions everywhere, on the roads around them in the city. However I would always prefer to be stuck behind a Range Rover 4.2 Sport than behind a stinking bendy bus or black cab.

But what does that matter when there is a planet to be saved? Good point, but again, when you look a little closer, you see that this won't make that much of a difference at all.

Supergreen Ken says that the changes are needed to help to tackle global warming (it's a good thing Two Jags is no longer Deputy Prime Minister). But a report on the impact of the scheme by Transport for London (TfL), his very own transport authority, revealed that the reduction in CO2 will probably be nowhere near initial estimates.

TfL claimed last year that emissions-related charging would reduce CO2 emissions by 8,100 tonnes. Its new estimate released in a report last Wednesday says that CO2 could be reduced by just 100 tonnes next year or 0.001 per cent of total annual emissions from transport in London. TfL now believes that in the best-case scenario the scheme will reduce emissions by a maximum of 5,000 tonnes or 0.05 per cent.

Ah well, this is the congestion charge, so even if it's not doing as much for the planet, it is easing congestion, right, so at least we will have less people on our roads. Wrong.

Last year sales of band A and B cars rose by 17 per cent to just under 130,000 and will rise again with this latest charge. This means that thousands of drivers who now have to pay £8 to enter the zone will gain free access from October. So what will they do? A large chunk will undoubtedly choose to switch to driving to work rather than taking public transport, thereby adding to overall emissions and the number of vehicles on the roads.

Green groups will no doubt argue that at least this will lead to more people choosing more environmentally friendly cars - but when this could lead to even more cars on our roads, surely the plan is flawed?

YOU may have heard the rumour and I am afraid the rumour is true. After 25 years of sponsoring the Review Half Marathon we have agreed to step aside and let somebody else have a go.

It's not that we don't want to be involved, it's just that ultimatums do not sit well with newspapers.

Most recently we had paid £3,000 a year to sponsor the event. This has included coverage of the event both online and in print as well as pull-outs, picture specials and articles telling our readers how to get fit ahead of the event.

But a few weeks ago we were told by St Albans District Council and Leisure Connection that to be title sponsors again, we had to stump up £10,000.

To make matters worse we were given four working days to decide whether or not we wanted to continue to back the event and stump up an increase of more than 200 per cent.

This came hot on the heels of us agreeing to sponsor the council's ice skating rink. The demand also came in spite of us agreeing to pay £3,000 for last year's event even though press releases were sent out calling it the St Albans Half Marathon.

It seems somebody somewhere really didn't like our involvement.

Apparently the hike in sponsorship is needed because the race has grown and more runners means more work and more work means more money. This I can understand. Why we were given such a short period of time to think it over is what I cannot.