Firms get tough over charging

15 November 2006

Birmingham’s business community will not back congestion charging in the West Midlands unless it is combined with at least £2bn worth of improvements in public transport and the road system.
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce said local businesses would only benefit from road charging if it was coupled with investment in transport infrastructure. Jerry Blackett, chamber chief executive and chairman of the West Midlands Business Transport Group, said road pricing would ‘inevitably have an impact on firms in the conurbation, which will, rightly, be concerned about the effect that such a scheme will have on their businesses’.
However, he added: ‘What is clear is that doing nothing is simply not an option. Road congestion currently costs business in the West Midlands £2.2bn a year in lost time, additional fuel costs and general stress.’
A recent West Midlands transport innovation fund study on road congestion highlighted the need for £4bn of investment in public transport and roads that would need to accompany road pricing. ‘It is essential that the conurbation receives at least half of this package before it begins to charge motorists,’ Blackett said.
A report by the Forum of Private Business echoes the chamber’s concerns, arguing that rolling out charging will only create further imbalances between high streets and out-of-town retailers. ‘We have seen the consequences on smaller businesses in London, with falling footfall and profitability, and many firms relocating to outside the congestion charge zone.’
Instead, the FPB wants the Department for Transport to focus on large firms, such as Tesco, ‘which have fleets of vehicles on the country’s roads’. Chief executive of the FPB, Nick Goulding, added: ‘It is these companies which should carry the burden of road pricing, not small local firms whose ecological impact is tiny in comparison’.

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