A leaked letter shows the government had urged Sadiq Khan to extend the capital’s current congestion charge zone in 2020 as a condition of funding for public transport.
The then transport secretary Grant Shapps wrote to the mayor setting out the conditions he wanted placed on providing financial help for Transport for London, which had been badly hit by the pandemic.
It reads: “Given the significant rise in congestion in inner London, we also propose the extension of the central London congestion charging zone to cover the same area as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and at the same time, October 2021.”
The letter, dated 1st October 2020, also asks Khan to “maintain the congestion charge at the current level and hours of operation,” thereby seeking the continuation of a previously agreed increase in the charge to £15 a day and the extension of its operating hours to weekends and until 10.00 pm.
Conservatives continue to claim that those changes were brought about by Khan, despite the 14th May agreement requiring him to “urgently bring forward proposals to widen the scope and levels” of the congestion charge and other road-pricing schemes.
Following the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, dubbed a ‘referendum on ULEZ’ by the local Tory candidate, several senior members of the party have come out against the scheme, including Mr Shapps himself.
Go figure!
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