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Wednesday 20 May 2020

Congestion Charge Myth

The Tories have trying to peddle a falsehood that Sadiq Khan has voluntarily reimposed the congestion charge and that the Tory government played no part in this.
This is flatly untrue.  In fact the reimposition of the charge is a condition of the bailout agreement. Not signing the bailout would leave TfL unable to trade I.e. not running any tubes or buses, leaving many Londoners without any way to get to work or in cases to access food shops.

The original thinking behind this was to encourage the use of public transport as an alternative to the car, but public transport is now highly restricted because of the social distancing rules.  Grant Shapps has urged everyone to use cars instead, which I am sure he knows is a complete non-answer in London where many don't have access to a car.  In any case replacing the journeys normally made on bus and tube with car journeys would lead to horrific traffic congestion.

I cannot help but suspect that the real Tory agenda is to infuriate Londoners and for Sadiq Khan to get the blame prior to the Mayoral election next year.

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