Khan’s congestion zone ‘will drive out firms’

BUSINESSES will be driven out of London’s suburbs because of Sadiq Khan’s plans to extend the congestion charging zone to within sight of the M25, the Tories claim.

Non-residents could be charged up to £5.50 for entering Greater London under the proposals. The mayor, who is chairman of TfL, is seeking a £3billion bail-out to avoid public transport in the capital grinding to a halt next year.

Last night Paul Scully, the minister for London, claimed that the charge would amount to people having to worry about going into suburbs at “checkpoint Chigwell”. However, Mr Khan said: “Plans for a £3.50 boundary charge for non-residents are only being considered because of the Government’s desire to punish Londoners by refusing to fund Transport for London properly after its finances were decimated by the pandemic, in particular by not allowing Vehicle Excise Duty collected in London to be spent in London.”

Sadiq Khan’s proposal to charge drivers up to £5.50 a day to enter Greater London is outrageous – a shameless, socialist spin on brigandage. The mayor of London is posing as a highway robber. His charge would be ruinous for the economy – particularly for businesses on the outskirts of the capital – discourage people from seeing their families, trash high streets, crush faith and minority communities, disrupt education and accentuate the social divides that Labour is supposed to want to reduce (but always makes worse). Mr Khan no doubt sees those who drive into London as Tory voters whom he can afford to penalise because they will not support him anyway. The policy is as cynical as it is petty, and will put up the cost of services for all Londoners as tradespeople are hammered by the tax.

Mr Khan conceives of London as a distinct polity, even a separate country, and this charge would effectively ring the city off behind a protective wall – a throwback to the economics of Ancien Regime France, where goods were taxed internally. With the capital’s finances bust, this will no doubt be accompanied by further future cuts to outer London bus routes. Those areas, and the suburbs, towns and villages of Hertfordshire, Surrey, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Essex and the rest, will always rely on cars; once again, policy for millions of suburbanites is being set by clueless, ideologically motivated inner-London ultra-urbanites.

The mayor should not even enjoy the power to contemplate such unforgivable robbery. But if the Government allows him to get away with it, the voters of outer London and the Home Counties will never forgive the Tories either.