Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has received Porsche’s letter setting out the basis of their proposed legal challenge to the £25 a day congestion charge, according to a spokesman from his office.
According to a spokesperson for the Mayor the letter claims “that it is illegal for the Mayor to introduce this policy”. The Mayor’s office has dismissed the claim as “wrong” adding “The Greater London Authority Act 1999 gives the Mayor the power to do this.”
“Londoners were consulted on this proposal and they will be also able to vote on candidates supporting and opposing it on 1 May.”
“Porsche has a vested interest in seeking to prevent London government from exercising its powers to improve the environment. Surveys show a big majority of Londoners support a higher congestion charge for the most CO2 emitting vehicles. The Mayor will contest this action vigorously.”
The car maker has launched an online petition to gather support for its judicial review against the charge.
In a statement on their website Porsche say the proposed charge “sends out the wrong message about London as a place to do business and will make successful people look at other cities to locate. We also believe that the increase is disproportionately large – a huge jump in one go that looks more like a political stunt than considered action.”
j green says
March 3, 2008 at 9:59 amit does not seem fair that the congestion charge is not paid by the embassys of london we have not been told the outcome of this and to waste all that money on cycle lanes when the nhs are so under funded with the population that we have now also its a good job police and bus drivers and firerfighters dont drink on duty like there employer
nigelc says
February 26, 2008 at 6:31 pmI support enviromental based charging. However, the proposals to expand Heathrowe with minimal increases in tax are completely inconsistent with the proposed 3000% increase in the congestion charge for vehicles just over the 225 limit. Please leave childish class politics out of the proposals and have the charges related to the potential polution.
Derek says
February 27, 2008 at 11:13 amAs the ‘Green’ bandwagon rolls on, many are drawn into its slipstream, often without understanding the details, nor far reaching consequences of their claims. Environmental issues are hot when big business is making money, and decidedly punitive when they stop people working – or even developing past cooking over a bunch of sticks in a corner of a mud hut – that is what the worlds emissions challengers are missing.
Every emissions tax is more money to governments in the West, who are just as corrupt as some of those receiving aid in Third World Countries. Hypocrisy is rife where World politics are concerned, and Cities like London are no exception.
While the many may crave for less pollution, the cost is less mobility. No prizes for guessing who the treasurer is. The environment has a way of dealing with pollution that is still not fully understood, yet we attempt to deal with the environment as if we were Lords and Masters over it. It is wrong. We must respect environment, but clamouring to charge for airborne emissions from fossil fuelled vehicles which overall have a negligible effect on the environment as a whole, is feeding governmental hypocrisy. We have fools climbing fences at Heathrow, discrimination against a car with four wheels driven instead of two, engines that are twice the size of those built forty years go, yet are twice as clean in their output. Whatever charges are placed upon vehicle owners – large or small – it’s the working man and the non-driving consumer who will foot the bill in greater costs of getting to work, and buying basic commodities. It’s attitudes which have become polluted, by ‘save the planet’ propaganda. The planet is quite capable of destroying us without our help. The sensible, middle line of environmental respect has been ignored – it doesn’t hit hard enough – it doesn’t pay.
Like rats, mankind in overcrowded conditions turns in on itself and self destructs, the young and the sick suffer first. Look at schools and the NHS. Yet we pull in another 800,000 immigrants, and fill our prisons to bursting point by creating more ‘laws’ in an effort to ‘control’. Those who govern fails us, because they fail to guide or be guided. They fail to take the right action at the right time. When it’s too late to make corrections, then the only option left is to leave.