The United States should use the appointment of its new Ambassador to the UK as an opportunity “to show to Londoners that things really have changed under Barack Obama’s new US administration” by agreeing to pay the London Congestion Charge, Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly have said.
Caroline Pidgeon, who leads for the party on transport issues, says President Obama’s appointment of Louis B. Susman as the new US Ambassador to the UK offers an opportunity for the US to “gain respect from Londoners” by paying the £3 million already owed in unpaid fines and ordering Embassy staff to pay the charge,
Seventy percent of diplomatic missions in the capital currently pay the Congestion Charge.
Pidgeon said the US “should lead by example and show that it accepts that the congestion charge is exactly that – far from being a tax, it is a charge for driving in central London. Londoners have to pay this, so it is time the US Embassy does the same and no longer provided a defence for other Embassies, such as China, North Korea, Libya and Cuba that also don’t pay the congestion charge.”
