Ken: 'Drop PPP and I drop car charge'

Ken Livingstone has confirmed he was willing to drop congestion charge plans if the Government had offered to abandon its PPP funding plans for the Tube.

As the Mayor announced that his cherished scheme to charge drivers £5 a day to enter Central London will begin next February, he said he would have reluctantly jettisoned charging to save the Underground from privatisation.

Following fears that the scheme would unfairly hit health workers and put the lives of Londoners at risk, Mr Livingstone has now promised not to impose his charge on doctors, staff carrying medical materials or patient records and on call staff.

Any NHS workers who are able to claim reimbursement from the NHS itself will be able to claim an exemption. Certain seriously ill patients being treated within the zone will also be exempt.

His officials claim the scheme should be able to fund itself - from charges and the £80 fines imposed on those who do not pay - within 18 months. Over the first 10 years it will raise £1.3 billion and the Mayor says all of that should be directed towards improving London's transport system.

Charging hours will run from 7am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, and those exempt include emergency vehicles, motorbikes and mopeds, buses and coaches.

The 136,000 residents inside the charge zone will receive a 90 per cent discount and there will be 100 per cent discounts for disabled blue badge holders, black cabs, licensed minicabs and firefighters travelling between stations for operational reasons.

The boundary the Mayor has chosen will be an inner ring road on which there will be no charge. This comprises Marylebone Road, Euston Road, Pentonville Road, City Road, Great Eastern Street, Commercial Street, Tower Bridge Road, New Kent Road, Kennington Lane, Vauxhall Bridge Road, Grosvenor Place, Park Lane and Edgware Road.

There will be cameras on that boundary which have an 85 per cent chance of recognising the 40,000 vehicles that drive into the zone during the morning rush hours.

But there will also be cameras inside the eight square mile zone which take the recognition rate up to 90 per cent.

London's motorists are almost equally divided over Ken Livingstone's congestion charge, with 42 per cent supporting the proposed £5 toll and 43 per cent opposing it, new figures from the RAC show.

In the survey of 320 London motorists, 45 per cent say they will leave their cars at home when it is introduced.

Congestion charge gets go-ahead
'Drop PPP and I drop car charge'
Key NHS staff will not pay
Battle is on for London's drivers
How the system will work
Should motorists be forced to pay?