Many good things have come out of Manchester, Oasis, Boddingtons and of course, Manchester United, plus a whole string of famous faces, but the people of Manchester have just proven that they are all stars by making a decision that has rocked the establishment and giving a firm and overwhelming no to plans to implement a congestion charge in their city, similar to the one currently operating in London.
I say well done on you.
It’s difficult to understand the thinking behind any of these congestion charge schemes and the one in Manchester highlights that. Surely, if it was quicker, easier, more convenient and cheaper to use public transport, then we would all do that and lets be honest, good, efficient public transport is our right, it’s our entitlement and motorists only drive their cars because, the public transport system is outmoded, outdated and has been totally neglected by government after government.
The carrot to the people of Manchester was a £2.7 Billion investment in public transport from central government which they would only get if they voted yes.
The investment would have been spent to improve the entire public transport system and they say, the works would have been completed before the congestion charging commenced and if that’s the case, surely once a ‘proper’ alternative was in place, then road congestion would naturally decline, negating the need for any congestion reducing schemes, as the new transport scheme would be such an attractive option, so why then implement a congestion charge in what would, by then be a less congested city?
Clearly, the new transport scheme wasn’t going to solve the situation, because it wasn’t going to be good enough, and it wasn’t going to offer the quicker, easier, more convenient and cheaper transport that we all need. But the deal, was however going to give them the right to implement a “cash raising” scheme that would last forever and the words ‘sprat & mackerel’ come to mind here.
Being cynical, you could just assume this was to have been a cash raising scheme to help central government pay for what they should already be providing us with. For over 30 years, we have known road traffic has been growing and frankly, it’s because successive governments have done nothing, that we have been forced into using our cars.
There is also something darker about all this. Clearly, central government has investigated a found that this £2.7 Billion investment was needed and is necessary to help Manchester and on that basis, then Manchester should get it. As it is however, by declining the congestion charging scheme, Manchester is being slapped on the wrists and is not going to get this investment and for me, that’s indicative of why we are in this situation in the first place. The dark side of this is that rather than the proposed investment being an incentive, or carrot for a yes vote; it seems as if it was blackmail plain and simple, but blackmail by central government.
We should all be proud of the people of Manchester who said no to a legacy that would see every motorist that visited Manchester for years to come, being charged for the privilege, damaging local business and industry in the process, with an obvious knock-on for the ordinary person in the street. Did government really expect turkeys to vote for xmas?
People of Manchester, good on you.
As an aside to the Manchester vote, just days before, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, confirmed he is abolishing the western extension to London’s congestion zone, after a public consultation showed the majority of residents there opposed it.
Leeds, Cambridge, Bristol and Reading have all been considering congestion charging and will be reassessing their approach following Manchester’s decision and the decision by the people of London (who lets face it, have more experience of charging zones than most of us) to abolish the western extension of the London Scheme.
