London Assembly Member for Bexley and Bromley, Peter Fortune, has called on the Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to scrap plans for pay-per-mile road charging in Greater London. This follows Peter uncovering evidence of a ‘Project Detroit’- a TfL programme partly aimed at enabling forms of road charging based on distance.
The Mayor has previously claimed that plans for new road user charging are “not on the table”, however, in July 2021 the Mayor also claimed to have no intention of expanding the so-called Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to Outer London. Just eight months later he announced the expansion, which came into effect in August 2023 despite a legal challenge from Conservative-run Bromley Council and four other councils seeking to prevent it.
A commitment to road user charging remains in the London Transport Strategy, so Peter and local Conservatives are now petitioning the Mayor to remove this commitment from the strategy and scrap Project Detroit, to show if he is serious about having no plans for pay-per-mile road charging.
You can sign the petition at https://www.beckenhamconservatives.com/Stop-Pay-Per-Mile.
Peter said:
“Sadiq Khan said he had no plans to expand the ULEZ, then expanded the ULEZ. So when he denies planning to introduce pay-per-mile, local residents don’t believe him. If the Mayor was serious, if he really has no plans to launch further attacks on drivers in Outer London, who don’t have the same public transport alternatives as Inner London, then he must remove the commitment for pay-per-mile from the London Transport Strategy. Until he does that, we should all take his comments with a mountain of salt. This Mayor has a record of saying one thing and doing something different”.
“Pay-per-mile road charging would be devasting to communities in places across Bromley, especially places like Keston, Downe and Biggin Hill. These towns and villages are not well served by public transport and are reliant on their vehicles for work, visiting families, getting to the shops and even just going about their day to day lives. If the Mayor prices them off the road, then these communities and their residents will become isolated. I don’t want to see that happen.”
“The ULEZ Expansion and pay-per-mile charging all demonstrate that Sadiq Khan doesn’t understand Outer London.”
