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from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Court told of pollution threat from traffic fee

Press Association

Tuesday July 16, 2002

The Guardian

A scheme to charge motorists £5 to drive into central London was condemned in the high court yesterday as unlawful and likely to increase air pollution and adversely affect the quality of city life.

Westminster council and the Kennington Association asked a judge to block the congestion charge project, which is set to be introduced in February.

Roger Henderson QC, appearing for Westminster, accused London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, of failing to carry out a full consultation before giving the multimillion pound scheme the go- ahead.

The QC told Mr Justice Maurice Kay that the mayor's decision was flawed and breached human rights because he had also failed to order an environmental impact assessment, or hold a public inquiry.

Those failures meant it had been impossible to consider fully all relevant matters, including local traffic management, parking, local air quality and the effect the scheme would have on all those who lived and worked in the city.

Opening an application for judicial review expected to last five days, Mr Henderson said a big fear was that Westminster's strategy for dealing with pollution would be seriously affected.

There would be a "significant air quality deterioration" as motorists used rat runs on the edge of the charging zone to escape the £5 fee and to avoid increased traffic.

The fee was expected to raise £130m in revenue every year to be spent on transport.

The hearing continues.

(posted 7924 days ago)

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