Manchester gives congestion charge a huge thumbs down

Plans to use road pricing to encourage drivers out of their cars and fund major public transport schemes have been dealt a devastating blow after voters in Greater Manchester rejected a congestion charge scheme by an overwhelming majority.

The Government had gone to great lengths to encourage the city to accept road pricing, its favoured method of tackling congestion. The vote was also seen as a major test of the public's willingness to accept green taxes.

But the sheer scale of the defeat, which saw four out of every five voters reject a scheme to charge £5 a day at peak times, is likely to render the issue politically dead for the next decade.

Manchester stood to gain a £1.5bn reward for returning a Yes vote, which would have been ploughed into improving public transport. It would also have been handed a £1.2bn loan, part-serviced by the income generated from the congestion charge.

The initial plans for charges around Stockport and Bolton had been dropped, while a 20 per cent discount for low-paid workers was introduced.

The Labour MP Graham Stringer, who campaigned against the project, said he was "delighted with the result", while Manchester City Council's leader, Sir Richard Leese, who had led calls for the charge, said his city had "lost the opportunity to get the changes in public transport we need".

The shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers, said the Government's attempt at "bullying" Manchester had failed. "It is clear that the Government is completely out of touch with the problems people face in Manchester," she said.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said yesterday the question of whether or not to go ahead with road pricing had "always been a decision for the people of Greater Manchester". No ministers would comment.

But there was clearly frustration among senior figures in the department. "We'll have to turn again to how the problem of congestion can be tackled," said a senior department source.

The DfT is likely to turn to further use of hard shoulder running, which permits drivers to use the hard shoulder at busy times. It is also looking at creating lanes reserved for vehicles carrying more than one person.

Any hopes of reviving the use of road pricing now lie in the hands of planners in Cambridge, the only other city to have a fully formed plan. Under its scheme, drivers would face a £5 charge for entering the busiest roads between 7.30am and 9.30am.

The plans were shelved after a mixed response to the public consultation. Sir Brian Briscoe, the former head of the Local Government Agency, was put in charge of an independent committee re-examining the issue last week. He will report back next summer but the scheme could go ahead without a vote, as the necessary public consultation has been carried out. Mooted schemes in Leeds, Bristol and Reading are a long way from being considered by the Government.

Is road pricing still the way ahead?

Yes

The strength of the vote against the congestion charge in Manchester kills off the strategy of trying to bribe voters into accepting such schemes.

This one had everything going for it: the promise of billions of pounds of transport improvements, a strong campaign and a relatively cheap charge, amounting to less than the extra motorists might pay if the price of petrol returns to this summer's levels.

The vote was resounding – and a missed opportunity. The hardware being offered, such as new tram lines and faster buses, would have benefited most people. And as the London charge has shown, there would have been a reduction of congestion and a far more pleasant city centre environment. But most importantly of all, Manchester would have looked modern. It would have attracted visitors impressed by its readiness to face the problems that affect every city.

The defeat puts paid to attempts to allow people to vote on such schemes. Voters cannot be expected to support schemes to tax them more, however logical and worthy. The only place where a congestion charge has been passed by referendum is in Stockholm. In London, it proved popular after it was implemented without a vote. In Edinburgh the vote went heavily against.

Ministers will have to go back to the drawing board to work out how to spend the huge Transport Innovation Fund budget, much of which would have gone to Manchester.

Christian Wolmar is a writer and broadcaster specialising in transport.

No

Thank you, Wigan. God bless, Bolton. May the sun always shine on Salford. The people of Greater Manchester have displayed characteristic common sense in rejecting the madness of congestion charging. With London's mayor, Boris Johnson, rolling back the frontiers of his zone, we have reached a turning point: crucially, national road pricing may now be averted.

Manchester saw the congestion charge for what it was – a scam. Put bus lanes everywhere; close off streets and set the traffic lights almost permanently to red. Oh, look: congestion. The charge was invented to give Ken Livingstone, when he ran London, a way to raise cash that wouldn't hurt anyone but drivers, always a legitimate target for bureaucratic abuse. You were fined £50 if you forgot to pay on the day, for example, an especially nasty twist. Then Livingstone set about expanding the zone with the zeal of the Victorian imperialists celebrated in Trafalgar Square – until he was stopped by the people.

When will the copycat Kens in our once-proud provincial cities open their eyes to see that their fiefdoms are dying? No one can drive to work or shop because of pedestrianisation, parking charges and punitive fines. So city centres are slaughtered by the traffic Taliban and by out-of-town malls where free parking rules. Not every dead city-centre bank, mill, post office, shop or office can be turned into a trendy bar. Not even in Manchester.

Sean O'Grady is The Independent 's Economics editor