Cambridgeshire County Council should make a bid to the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF), on condition that congestion charging will only follow if transport improvements fail, according to a commission set up by the local authority.
Following an extensive inquiry, the Cambridgeshire Transport Commission found that the £500M bid to the Department for Transport should go ahead ‘for the good of the country, as well as the county’.
However, it is adamant the council should reach an agreement with the Government that charging can only be introduced when congestion reaches a certain level – and no sooner than 2017.
The county council set up the commission last year, due to insufficient local support for its TIF proposal, which included a peak-time road charge for Cambridge.
The commission’s report stated that a congestion charge might be needed in future but it should only follow TIF improvements to cycling, walking and public transport infrastructure.
It suggested that the public, businesses and councils in the county needed to agree with the Government a ‘trigger point’ where congestion was so bad that charging was necessary.
‘Of course, if people decide to use the transport improvements and transfer from their cars in sufficient numbers, this point can be put off into the future,’ said Sir Brian Briscoe, chairman of the commission.
‘I’m hoping the DfT won’t be inflexible. This is a good opportunity to finally make a reality of a TIF bid,’ he told Surveyor. ‘But people need more time to understand the issue. They are suspicious of congestion charging and see it as another tax. If the public were part of the debate about when a charge was needed, then it would be unlikely that they’d vote “no” to it. The department must understand it will not get a congestion charge without the investment.’
Sir Brian suggested that the DfT’s concerns over this approach could be alleviated by adopting it on an ‘experimental pilot’ test case basis. If successful, this could set precedent on how future TIF bids were made.
Roy Pegram, Cambridgeshire County Council’s cabinet member for growth, infrastructure and strategic planning, said the inquiry would be considered carefully.
A DfT spokeswoman said: ‘We will assess any proposals that the county council submits against the published criteria.’
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