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Andrew, I'd say the devil would be in the detail.At present if we need to deliver into the congestion zone it costs £15. Do we charge £15? No. Customers would never go for it especially if they can get something delivered for £2.50 or whatever the Ocado fee is these days. In a way, delivery is a bit of a loss leader. If we take the risk locally and fail, it could cost upward of £60 is it if we pay a PCN quickly? So, again, we have effectively been cut off from serving a customer base we've served for years. Now it's a risk management equation when before it was risk-free. It is also more time consuming so not a win/win as it should be especially on the local level.When possible we try to coordinate deliveries to customers with driving to set-up/deliver our markets and with supply runs. So the current system of a daily fee makes more sense for the bottom line for a business that is London-centric. No clue what the charge would be for a demand management scheme. But I can tell you there are days we clock 50 miles in a day and sometimes more as lately we're having to go further afield to get the supplies needed. To rely on a supplier delivery is a crap shoot at the best of times as they are unpredictable both in terms of timing and quality/quantity of goods delivered. For example, if they come late and don't have all that was ordered, we are caught short-handed. And we won't know that until they get to the door. Many of the hospitality suppliers are surprisingly old-school when it comes to technology.And if we click over to the trades, if your plumber needs a part to fix your toilet and his normal supplier doesn't have it, is he expected to eat the additional cost for having to go around searching for it? I can assure you if they attempted to limit their costs potentially leaving you without a toilet for a night, they would never hear the end of it. So a moving target fee seems punitive to small businesses of a certain size. Perhaps tiers of small are in order?

David Lesniak ● 1708d

That's quite an aggressive attitude you bring to the discussion about feasibility of measures to tackle climate change. Insulting people by calling them morons doesn't confer intellectual or moral superiority in the way that you appear to think it does. The opposite in fact. It just makes you like Steve Taylor. Schemes that make driving less convenient and encourage active travel are both feasible and highly cost-effective with easily quantifiable material returns that massively outweigh investment and maintenance. There are countless studies proving it. There are none disproving it. And yet you are actively working in this field while vigorously and often very angrily opposing any and every effort to reduce personal car use. Explain that.Fair enough I could have and should have worded the OP better. I didn't mean it to read as "every" journey but I accept that it does read like that. The press statement does indeed say £2 per day. No edit function on this forum.A £2 per day charge for cars or an extension to ULEZ is feasible to execute in London. People on this forum have not believed that ULEZ would happen, that road space would be reallocated away from cars to cycle lanes, that bus gates would be installed and buses given priority over cars. All these things can, do and will happen. We will see a reduction in the use of private cars in at least central London in the next decade. There is a great deal of elasticity in the system due to the high volume of short and easily replaceable car journeys that take place today. Many in parts of London that can already be classified as 15 minute cities. Even our local Conservative Councillors have called Chiswick a 15 Minute City. I know from living here for 20+ years that there are many local car journeys that are easily substitutable. I used to make them myself and I have substituted them. And actually I think we will see road user pricing as well. Well before 2030. The government should and will take a keen interest in London leading the way on development and implementation of the scheme in order for them to extend it to the rest of the UK.One of my hobbies is campaigning to change the way we use urban space. I've met some great friends through that hobby. There are many really brilliant people devoting a lot of their spare time to making our City healthier and more liveable. Funnily enough it was the incivility of people on this forum towards cyclists and campaigners for active travel that got me into the hobby in the first place. So I have Chiswick W4 to thank (special nod to Pembo, Kasner and Moran and the irascible baker) for widening my circle of friends and enriching my life. It is very rewarding to see successful outcomes from the efforts we have made.

Paul Campbell ● 1707d

Paul, the description of you as a moron, whilst prompted by your pointless and glib comment, is my opinion formed by viewing a lot of your posts. I don't think it infers moral superiority in any way.When you say highly cost-effective, you mean in terms of reducing a small number of journeys within a constricted area whilst displacing pollution to other areas? As I've pointed out on posts previously, the actual reduction in pollution from the active travel measures being taken in London is so small as to be almost immeasurable on a global scale. And this is what it's about isn't it? Saving the planet?I don't actually oppose a reduction in personal car usage, if there is an actual, viable alternative. Walking or cycling isn't it in a city the size of London, or for those who simply aren't able to, or for those carrying tools, etc for work. Hell, the authority I work for won't allow its EV's to be charged on street because they get broken into, let alone trying to transport materials and tools on a bike, which is even less secure.What irritates me beyond measure is the total ignorance of those factors by policy makers, who leave behind those groups without a care because they're saving Johnny Polar Bear. That and the bizarre assumptions:1.that they can determine what is an essential journey - there is no objective way of measuring or defining this;2. Everyone is desperately waiting for more road closures & then we'll all jump on a bike or walk everywhere.What I would prefer to see is that the bigger problems are sorted out first, rather than taking the easiest possible alternative and making little difference.Buses have had priority over cars for some time, decades even. You are aware of the existence of bus lanes right? Currently, the rash of "Covid-fighting" cycle lanes are temporary, though given that the results of local consultations are routinely ignored, they will continue to be in place and underused.Conservative Councillors may well have called Chiswick a 15 minute city, it doesn't mean they're right (spoiler: they're not). It's also a strange piece of thinking/policy making to expect humans to want to stay in one place.If a proper public transport network is in place, then yes, you will see personal car usage drop, however, given how poorly much of the country is covered on that front & hell, how badly large parts of London are, it's not going to happen until it is. £2 a day whilst a regressive form of taxation, will make minimal difference & honestly, that's what TfL want, they can't afford to bring it in & have a significant drop in motorists - they're already suffering an income drop from lower than anticipated ULEZ income, which means that they can't fund other works.Do you consider annoying and alienating people against your ideas as a vital part of campaigning? If not, why do you spend time doing it on this board?

Mark Warburton ● 1706d

Reducing use of personal cars in cities like London is not only about carbon emissions and climate change. It is also about localised air pollution, public health, road safety and the cost of congestion. It is about creating more liveable urban spaces. The benefits of reducing the dominance of cars in urban environments are myriad and really it shouldn't be so controversial for people. We all have experiences of visiting places that are so much the better for limiting the impact of cars whether it be shopping centres, medieval city centres like York or Durham, Bank junction, piazzas in Europe or entire cities like Copenhagen or anywhere in the Netherlands. Plus now Paris, Milan, Barcelona and really any city with aspirations to improve the life of its citizens and attract inwards investment. But the key word here is "reducing" not banning so people who are dependent on cars for trades and many other reasons will continue to use them. Nobody, not even me at my most playful, has ever suggested banning cars on this forum to my knowledge. The Mayor's statement cites 27%. There are of course many other important contributors to carbon as you say. Any major change will involve tackling big issues and also low-hanging fruit. Decarbonising transport is a priority for most policy-makers, it is relatively easier to address than other priorities and it delivers many other useful benefits that reduce the cost of harmful externalities such as illness and death from air pollution and road KSIs. The fact that we are all so focused on the transport component on this forum is a function of the local nature of the debate.£2 a day is just an example of one option that will be considered in the consultation. There will be others. I think it is good to have a roadmap for the next decade with graduated disincentives for driving that ends with road-user charging.I'm not really campaigning on here. I am more than aware of how inconsequential the conversation on this forum is. All the important stuff happens in the real world. This is just a bit of fun and yeah I don't mind angry reactions or insults from people on here. I am secure enough in my work, family and social life to pay no heed to being called a "moron" or many of the worse things people have called me. Most people who do it are never going to change their minds anyway. They are as convinced that we should maintain total freedom of driving as I am convinced that we should curtail it because it actually limits too many of our freedoms and is harmful for all of us. You are right that more investment in PT is needed. This government is going to make that difficult for London. Which is a real shame. Removing cycle lanes and planters and transferring the entire budget for active travel wouldn't make much difference to that. So my view is that in the absence of substantially increased investment in PT, provision for active travel is even more important to enable substitution of some car journeys.

Paul Campbell ● 1706d