Motorists 'will accept congestion charges'

Nearly three quarters of drivers would support congestion charges if they were tied to investment in transport, a report from the RAC Foundation claimed yesterday.

The foundation, which is the campaigning arm of the RAC, said worsening traffic delays had prompted a change in attitude in drivers, who had dropped their "outright hostility" to the charges. The report found that demand for car travel was likely to rise by 50 per cent in 30 years and charges would be needed on 10 per cent of roads to stop congestion getting worse.

The foundation's director Edmund King, said the conclusion of the Motoring Towards 2050 report represented a U-turn for an organisation that had previously described congestion charges as a "poll tax on wheels". But he said a survey by NOP Automotive found that 73 per cent of drivers believed tolls were acceptable if there was an equivalent reduction in road tax fees, and 71 per cent would accept them as a package of better roads, public transport and traffic management.

"In the last few years as congestion has got worse there has been a change in attitudes," Mr King said. "The motorist is more likely to accept radical change than perhaps most politicians have realised." But he said motorists would need to see improvements to roads and public transport first, which the Government should pay for from the £30bn it took from them in tax.