The One London Party has called on Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to commission “an urgent, comprehensive survey on the effect on businesses of the western extension of the Congestion Charge.”
The zone was expanded on 19 February to include Bayswater, Notting Hill, North and South Kensington, High Street Kensington, Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Belgravia and Pimlico.
Damian Hockney, leader of the One London Party, said, “whenever the Mayor is asked about the C-Charge’s impact on businesses, he refers to some anecdotal hearsay about John Lewis or a local fishmonger. If they spent as much money on polling local businesses in places like Kensington and Chelsea as they do on propaganda about the Charge, we may see some good come out of it.”
Mr Hockney claimed there was evidence “that the increased cost of doing business in Central London has had an adverse effect of business” and pointed to VAT returns which he says “show a serious decline in VAT registration in Central London compared with outer London, which can’t be explained by anything other than the C-Charge effect.”
Figures published today by Transport for London suggest traffic in the western extension of the congestion charging zone has fallen by 13%.
