Bailiffs to pursue congestion charge dodgers

Ken Livingstone expects more than 30,000 motorists a month to evade the London congestion charge and has offered contracts for bailiffs to collect the fines.

The scale of the debt collection scheme, which will begin two months after the charges are introduced next year, has cast fresh doubt on the viability of the scheme.

The contracts, which are being offered across the EU, say each bill for failure to pay a fine will total £125, and that up to 34,000 warrants could be issued each month. The fine is £80, rising to £120 after a month.

The bailiffs will be required to have a "high collection rate" to deter other motorists from evading fines. "The primary function of the debt collection services will be to encourage and enforce compliance with the proposed charging scheme," the tender document, advertised in Brussels under EU law, says.

Non-payment of fines is expected to bring in around £40m a year, with an estimated 5,000 motorists a day expected to be caught by cameras without the £5 permits.

Last night, Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for London, said debt collectors would be working overtime to collect the unpaid congestion charges. "Ken Livingstone has got to sort out these problems or the whole system will have to be put on hold," he said. "With this number of unpaid fines it will be the bailiffs clogging up the streets of London, not the motorists."

The tender estimates that bailiffs will be chasing between 6,000 and 34,000 motorists a month. Transport for London, which is in charge of the congestion scheme, said those figures represented the "widest parameters". "It is not an accurate estimate," said a spokesman. Transport for London estimates that about 125,000 motorists will pay the £5 fee to enter central London each day, bringing in a total of about £130m a year.