Lynne Featherstone

There was a meeting today with the transport leads from each party at the GLA to see if we can get agreement on the Review of Congestion charging report.

Pigs might fly! The Tories think it is a good report – but don’t want to sign up in principle because they don’t approve of congestion charging. The fact we are there to scrutinise the Mayor’s policy on behalf of London seems to have eluded them.

Labour either hadn’t yet read the report or were simply being obstructive. They probably won’t sign up to because, although the report finds the congestion charging scheme in terms of reducing congestion a success, it does level criticism over customer service and potential business impacts as yet unknown. And Labour, now in love with Mayor Livingstone, won’t tolerate any criticism of the Mayor.

So – how to get this very excellent review published is a mystery to me at this point – but we will see if the New Year brings any more sense to the equation.