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from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Fiver-a-driver legal wrangle

Jul 16 2002

By Jon Ryder, South London Press

THE BATTLE raging over the controversial congestion charge plan has reached the High Court amid claims it will cause motoring chaos.

Westminster council and angry people likely to be affected have been fuming about the proposed scheme, believing it will pump pollution into residential streets and turn quiet neighbourhoods into rat runs.

The council and the Kennington Association (KA) yesterday mounted their challenge to the toll, hoping to force London Mayor Ken Livingstone to postpone the scheme until a public inquiry has been carried out.

Objectors claim people living just outside the charge boundary will find their streets clogged as commuters look for a way to avoid paying up for the privilege of driving into the capital.

Residents claim the plan will effectively fence them out of their own city, cutting them off from essential services like doctors' surgeries, schools and nurseries.

And the council claims all this means the £5-a-day scheme - due to be introduced in February - is in breach of motorists' human rights and wants a judicial review to challenge the fee scheme.

Mark Rogers, speaking for the KA, said: "Ideally we want Ken to go back to the drawing board.

"There has to be an environmental assessment, something which he should have done a long time ago.

"We are not opposed to the idea of congestion charging, but we do want a more sensitive approach."

The High Court hearing to decide if a judicial review can go ahead is expected to last most of the week.

A spokeswoman for the the Mayor's office said the scheme did not interfere with people's human rights and there had been wide-scale public consultation.

She added that Mr Livingstone was not obliged to carry out a public inquiry and that a Transport for London environmental survey found that there would not be a significant increase in pollution.

(posted 7925 days ago)

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