From its inception in 1986, LPAC’s view was that despite some ‘noteworthy but piecemeal and limited improvements’ (for example the Travelcard – which gave unlimited travel across the network and superseded the Capitalcard, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), and the completion of the M25) there had been “a gradual and relentless deterioration of conditions on London’s roads and public transport networks”. Of particular concern was the extent of traffic congestion, which was now encroaching into the off-peak periods particularly in central and inner London. London was becoming “ever more congested and overcrowded and its parking and other problems ever more intractable”.[1]
By the 1990s, the average speed of trips across London was below that at the beginning of the twentieth century— before the car was introduced. As Jonathan Leape records in his article “The London Congestion Charge”[2], traffic speeds in central London had fallen more than 20% since the 1960s, from an average 12.7 mph for the morning peak period in 1968 (and a high of 14.2 mph in 1975) to 10 mph in 1998. More and more time was spent stationary.
Clogged up roads meant that buses, an essential part of London’s transportation network, were widely perceived to be very slow and unreliable. “The growth in traffic levels and resulting gradual decrease in traffic speed are the root of operational problems facing bus operators and therefore passengers”[3]. Rail services had seen a dramatic turnaround since 1984, with growing usage after many years of decline. However, overcrowding and discomfort were worse than ever on many routes, reliability had hardly improved, and customer complaints were rising. Poor quality rail links into Central London were acting as a brake on economic growth.
LPAC’s conclusion was that the problems faced by Londoners in moving around the city by car, bus, rail, underground, foot or cycle were even worse than the transport select committee judged them to be at the start of the 1980s. Central and local government politicians had often failed to take a lead in tackling the problems caused by poor transportation systems and management. Accessibility for most people had deteriorated faster for those without cars than those who had regular use of a car. The broad failure of the system to keep pace with changing accessibility needs was impinging directly on the economy and employment.
Ever since the 1930s, urban planners had struggled with how to accommodate rising levels of car ownership and usage. With car ownership (and multiple car ownership in one family) linked to rising household incomes, an exalted freedom to travel wherever and whenever, and public transport linked (at least in some politicians’ minds) with being a failure in life, there seemed to be no end to the number of cars that would seek to travel along London’s roads.
In “Waterloo Sunrise”, his account of London from the sixties to Thatcherism, John Davis argues that managing the expansion of car usage “had been a matter of concern in London for decades and the favoured solution in the eyes of traffic planning professionals had long been clear – the modernisation of London’s obsolete road network to channel through and fast traffic into purpose built new roads, where neither local traffic nor pedestrians would impede it.” [4]
In his Greater London Plan of 1944, master planner Sir Patrick Abercrombie had been an advocate of ring roads and divided the London region into four rings: the inner urban, the suburban, the green belt, and the ‘outer country ring’ lying beyond Greater London. This was to be part of a web of arterial roads, which would shape a new London to emerge from the bombed out ruins of the Blitz. Although Abercrombie’s Plan provided a comprehensive blueprint for development, alongside a central policy aim to decentralise the London economy, its implementation was never fully realised. The economic climate in Britain of post war austerity was never going to enable the level of infrastructural investment Abercrombie was advocating.
Nevertheless, part of the rationale for the creation of the Greater London Council (GLC) lay in a long-standing commitment to bring the urban motorway proposals of Abercrombie’s plan to fruition. Under the London Government Act 1963, the GLC was to prepare a general development plan (the Greater London Development Plan, GLDP) which would lay down “considerations of general policy with respect to the use of land in the various parts of London, including, in particular, guidance as to the future road system”; then each of the 32 new boroughs and the City would be required to prepare a more detailed plan of its own area which should accord with the policies set out by the GLC in the approved general plan.
Under the 1963 Act the GLC became the highway authority for approximately 550 miles of principal roads (designated metropolitan roads), the Department of Transport (DfT) retained responsibility for trunk roads and the boroughs the remainder. The GLC also became the strategic planning authority for the whole of London and the traffic authority for all roads except trunk roads. The 1969 Transport (London) Act increased the GLC’s direct authority over highways by transferring 352 miles of principal roads, from the London boroughs, and the Ministry of Transport also initially agreed to the transfer of trunk roads – though this was never implemented.
The GLC planners proposed to build three orbital motorways outside the central area: the innermost of them – the Motorway Box (Ringway 1) was unveiled immediately the GLC came into being in 1965, while Ringway 2 (basically the South and North Circular) and Ringway 3 (which would eventually morph into the M25) were developed as part of the general development plan (GLDP).
The Motorway Box was “a squashed rectangle nine miles across, much of it hoisted on to concrete viaducts and spanning up to 30 metres at junctions, it would have run through areas including Earl’s Court, Clapham Junction, Brixton, Blackheath, Hackney Wick, Dalston, Camden and Kilburn.” [5] Initially public opinion seems to have been impressed by the vision, but as more fears emerged about cost and the scale of the displacement necessary to allow construction, the then Labour Government appointed a public inquiry into the GLDP. The Layfield Inquiry (led by Frank Layfield QC) received over 20,000 public objections to the GLC’s motorway plan. Under expert scrutiny, Layfield exposed the plan’s flaws and there was organised public opposition with the emergence of community groups and the transformation of local historical societies into more activist bodies.
Opposition to the Motorway Box coalesced under the banner of the London Motorway Action Group (LMAG) led by Labour MP Douglas Jay.[6] While the Conservative administration and newly formed national government under Ted Heath wanted to press on, many Labour-led inner London boroughs were worried about the impact and cost of the displacement of residents and the initial budget for the Motorway Box of £480m was daunting. The Association of Labour-run councils and the Labour group on the GLC were now opposed to the Ringways. At the 1973 GLC election, Labour won 58 seats against the Conservatives 32 and the Motorway Box was dropped.
Traffic levels continued to increase. Over the following 10 years traffic levels in Greater London rose by about 15% overall, while travel by public transport declined – overall travel by bus was down by about 15% and by the underground about 20%. The proportion of people travelling to work in central London by private transport continued to increase.[7] Traffic was being restrained by congestion with all the harmful environmental, business and personal consequences which sitting in stalled traffic for hours entailed.
While many plans were prepared for London roads, none were carried out to any significant extent. The Treasury bulked at the cost and questioned the real benefits of the massive investments required, while public opinion was highly attuned to the likely damage new road building would bring.
The Archway Road is part of the A1 trunk road, which runs from the City of London through Islington, Haringey and Barnet heading north to York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on to Edinburgh. It was one of the major routes linking the old industrial and business areas of central London with the Midlands and the North and helped funnel traffic down to the ports of the south-east. From the 1950s onwards it became heavily congested throughout the day. The build-up of traffic caused intense frustration and delay and pedestrians found great difficulty in crossing the road. “The noise and fumes make living and working conditions particularly unpleasant close to the road. To avoid Archway Road, traffic diverts to other routes, such as Highgate Hill, and adds to the difficulties on these.” [8]
The Archway Road was administered by the Department for Transport (DfT) under the Trunk Roads Act 1936. An improvement was suggested by the former Middlesex county council’s initial development plan of 1956. In 1962, the DfT included in its trunk road programme proposals to improve Archway Road. Hornsey Borough Council and its successor, Haringey London Borough Council, were appointed as agents for the preparation of a scheme for a dual three-lane road with at-grade (ie on the same level) junctions. Plans were well advanced when, in 1967, Haringey suggested that a grade separation scheme be considered using the abandoned Edgware-Finsbury Park railway line. After discussions with the council, it was agreed that in view of the difficult traffic and environmental problems to be solved, both civil engineering and planning consultants should be appointed to prepare a scheme acceptable to Haringey and the DfT. This was the first trunk road in London where planning consultants were brought into partnership in the design of a scheme.
A public inquiry into these proposals started on 1st November 1973 and continued until 21st January 1974. This first inquiry seems to have run smoothly, with little public attention. The inspector reported in 1974 in favour of a dual two-lane road, as desired by the GLC, but with provision for future widening to dual three-lane road. There were problems with the interchange with Shepherd’s Hill and a pub “The Woodman” was, in the plans, stranded on an island with no access to either Highgate Village or Muswell Hill. These reservations made it necessary to hold a further inquiry.
This time round the public were alive to the inquiry and as part of the burgeoning “Homes before Roads” protest movement, local people began to organise themselves to better challenge the proposed scheme. There was growing recognition that more roads meant more traffic, more congestion and more pollution and that some 120 of the fine early 20th century homes and shops that lined the road would be demolished, with the DfT already buying up property and letting it to housing associations in anticipation. There would be a new flyover at Shepherd’s Hill and where the new road would cross the old railway land between Muswell Hill Road and Aylmer Road, it would destroy part of Highgate Wood.
The second inquiry began on 15th September 1976. On the first day about a thousand people turned up to fight the scheme. “The objectors came bringing their children and their lunch, prepared to camp out to see off those who wished to destroy our very pleasant part of London.”[9] The Archway Improvement Association (a tongue-in-cheek play on the government named Archway Road Improvement Scheme) was set up and it helped organise residents committees to ensure consistently high levels of turn out. A daily news sheet was produced and a rota set up of objectors and potential speakers. The list ran into the thousands. The inspector found it difficult to make progress because of filibustering by certain objectors and proceedings would at times get rowdy. After a series of adjournments, the inspector became ill, apparently suffering a nervous breakdown, and the inquiry had to be abandoned on 1st October 1976. No progress had been made during this time on investigating the substance of the objections.
A fresh inquiry started on 19th April 1977, under a different inspector, who decided to limit access to the hall to only the objector due to speak. In protest at one session there was a mass walk-in and the inspector fled the crowd through an open window and down the fire escape. [10] After the start of the inquiry, the GLC and Haringey changed their views: the GLC to full support of the proposals as a whole and Haringey to outright opposition. Local opponents ramped up their efforts; a new body ‘Stop the Archway Motorway Plan’ was set up, led by George Stern, who as a statistician brought detailed scrutiny to the government’s figures; there were demos, marches, radio phone-ins, letters to MPs and newspapers. The filibustering ground on. The inspector managed to keep things going until 12th October, but there were only 28 working sessions during this period, 18 of them devoted to arguments about legality and procedures. Only during the last 10 sessions was a start made on examination of one of the consulting engineer witnesses. There were claims that the inspector was harassed and that officials and witnesses supporting the DfT’s proposals were intimidated and abused. The third inquiry was abandoned on 21 March 1978, with the government quoting as a prime reason a campaign of ‘organised disruption’.
Nevertheless, despite the apparent decision to abandon the scheme, the 1978 White Paper “Policy for Roads ” published after the abandonment of the inquiry stated that the improvement to the Archway Road was scheduled to start in 1981–83, and a sum of £5.2 million was set aside for that purpose. The anxiety and uncertainty for the local people was set to drag on.
It is worth noting that up to that point the improvement plan had already cost £815,000 (£6.5m in today’s prices). That figure included property acquisition costs of about £380,000, consultants’ costs amounting to £250,000 and inquiry costs of £135,000.
The DfT and the GLC reviewed the scheme again and reported back to the secretary of state in September 1980. New draft orders for a scheme were published in September and December 1982. After three pre-inquiry meetings in 1983, the fourth inquiry, led by Air Marshall Sir Michael Giddings opened in January 1984. He was soon to complain bitterly about his treatment by the objectors – harassment, night-time phone calls, trespassers in his garden, packets of dubious content put through his letterbox. [11] He felt he had to resign and in September 1984, this inquiry was also abandoned. Nevertheless, the government insisted that “if London is to thrive, commerce and industry require, and will continue to require, suitable roads into London and for cross-London movement inside the M25 ring.”[12] A fifth inquiry therefore seemed possible.
In March 1990, Cecil Parkinson, the then secretary of state for transport, abandoned the major road schemes that had been recommended in the London Assessment Studies. Their likely cost and the levels of expected public opposition made progressing new road schemes unworkable. Proposals for the Archway Road Motorway had, finally, been laid to rest.
Nicky Gavron’s initial engagement with the community fight to prevent the Archway Road widening came alongside her campaign to create the Jackson’s Lane community arts centre from the Wesleyan Methodist church that had been closed since 1975. Nicky recalled how “after the assessment studies died a death the main issue became how to prevent the DfT selling off property to the highest bidder and evicting an established community. Representations to Haringey by the tenants led to the formation of the Archway Road Tenants Association (ARTA). I was very much involved and attended their regular meetings. Several meetings with the DfT took place, and there were a number of successes, where tenants were able to purchase their premises. But on the whole, the community was dispersed and the property sold to private interests. Meanwhile, Archway Alert – the latest umbrella organisation continued to meet and to monitor what was going on, including the implementation of the Red Route proposals and to comment on transport policy in Haringey and in London.
Around this time Haringey Council (LBH) was drafting its Unitary Development Plan and was scheduled for a public inquiry. I proposed a non-statutory “local plan” for the Archway Road given how blighted by road proposals it had become which could be prepared as an insert to the draft UDP. Working with Tony Cumberbirch we prepared the plan, which was then the subject of public consultation and approval. However, despite vigorous arguments, the inspector was not prepared to consider the local plan as part of the UDP process as, he argued, it had no legal status. Despite this ruling, the local plan was used by LBH development control and influenced the scale and type of development on a number of key sites along the road.”
While it had supported road building schemes such as the Archway Road Improvement Plan, thinking within the GLC was evolving. Its draft 1984 GLDP, which was never accepted by government as by then the GLC was set to be abolished, argued that while an “increase in road capacity and a change in the pattern of London’s roads is necessary to alleviate today’s congestion and environmental disruption… public transport must be improved as a mass carrier and made more attractive.”
The GLC proposed a hierarchy of three groups of roads of different traffic importance made up of primary roads, secondary roads and local roads. Measures would be taken to ensure that traffic making longer journeys would be ‘canalised’ into the primary and more important secondary roads. Car use would be restrained through parking and traffic management measures.
Meanwhile, public transport would require substantial financial assistance to enable services of sufficient quality and frequency to be operated at fares which those most dependent upon public transport could afford.
These were words into the wind. With the abolition of the GLC in 1986 some 65 miles of significant highways–those which played an important role in London-wide movement were transferred to the DfT, while the rest were transferred to the boroughs.
At this time government was still pursuing a strategy to support the free flow of traffic across and through London. The London Assessment Studies (LAS) were commissioned by the DfT in November 1984 and covered four study areas: East London (ELAS), West London (WLAS), South Circular (SCAS) and South London (SLAS). At their launch the LAS were effectively road corridor studies. Each of the four study areas was strongly related to trunk roads, often centred around a previous road construction proposal or route.
The studies were carried out in two stages over a five-year period at a reported cost of £10m. Stage 1 was concerned with the identification of transport related problems and involved extensive surveys in each area. The stage 1 reports were published in November 1986.
However, when the final terms of reference for stage 2 were announced in July 1987 the DfT had at least made it clear that the studies concerned all modes of transport and not just roads. However, they resolutely refused to accept the need for a wider, strategic level study to set the London-wide context for the area based studies.
Stage 2 covered option identification and assessment. During the stage 2 process, the DfT set up a central consultative group to consider issues common to the four studies and four area consultative groups. These groups brought together representatives from the DfT, the LAS consultants and the boroughs including LPAC, British Rail, London Transport and the police.
Stage 2 reports were divided into two. Stage 2a was concerned with the identification of a range of transport options viewed as relevant to overcoming the problems identified in Stage 1. The stage 2a reports for each area were published in June 1988. Stage 2b followed on from this initial work and developed in more detail those options which the consultants felt had the greatest potential.
The LAS consultants together produced nearly 40 options in their stage 2 reports. Road building options were a central element of all four studies and the cumulative capital costs of the LAS consultants preferred highway schemes totalled over £2.4bn at 1988 prices and would have required the demolition of over 2,300 properties.
Simultaneously with the publication of the stage 2 reports, the secretary of state for transport issued a discussion document entitled “Traffic in London”. Although “Traffic in London” was made public at the same time and had the same timescale for consultation as the LAS, the secretary of state gave no clear indication of the relationship between the two.
During their gestation the LAS reports were heavily criticised. It was widely recognised that transport problems needed to be tackled at three levels: London-wide, area-wide and locally. The stage 1 reports, however, lacked the London-wide component and it seemed unwise to pursue solutions through separate area studies alone. They were criticised for being problem focused and not objective-led, for leading to piecemeal solutions and a lack of environmental awareness.
Consultation on the stage 2 reports ran from December 1989 to the end of February 1990. Following the end of the consultation period, on 27 March 1990, Cecil Parkinson, the then secretary of state for transport, made a statement about transport in London. This abandoned the major road schemes recommended in the studies and instead identified a number of modest improvements for further study and announced that the DfT would go ahead with a priority route system (the Red Routes) and the appointment of a London traffic director to oversee its management.
In its 1988 strategic advice, LPAC further developed the shift in the GLC’s thinking to press for a change in direction and set out a damning critique of government transport policy.
“The 1985 Local Government Act requires UDPs to include policies and proposals for the physical environment and the management of traffic. The committee is conscious that land use policies, improvements of the environment and traffic management cannot be developed at borough level for a period up to 2001, without a clear overall strategic framework for transport in London. More than any other subject, transport and traffic pays no respect to borough boundaries.”[13]
“The committee is, [therefore] of the view that UDPs cannot establish a new and effective strategic planning framework for London unless the DfT provides a strategic transport framework and fairly firm 10-15 year programme for public transport and highway investment.”[14]
“The present position however is so uncertain and piecemeal that critical forward planning decisions regarding major developments and much of the content of UDPs in the environmental and traffic management fields cannot be established. A list of the current rather loose and unrelated ‘mix’ of committed road and rail schemes would on its own not be a useful framework. It is likely that this plethora of current government sponsored studies will produce proposals that conflict or counteract the effects of other studies proposals. In addition, all the indicators are that the number of schemes being considered will be far in excess of available funding.
Therefore priorities will have to be set. This can only be sensibly undertaken within an agreed investment strategy for London developed through appropriate London-wide studies.”[15]
In order to support economic development and improve accessibility and meet environmental objectives the committee set out a strategy including the following:
In conclusion, LPAC argued that “further studies indicated that rail investment and stronger traffic restraint policies would lead to traffic moving more freely and that in broad terms, LPACs objectives are better served by such an approach than by major new road building.”[16]
The government’s response in its 1989 strategic guidance, was disappointing, and simply reiterated existing on-going and planned rail and underground investments. There were no new schemes, such as LPAC’s proposal for a cross-London link (ie CrossRail, now the Elizabeth line). The government recognised that on current trends “the number of cars owned in London could increase by between 22% to 34% by 2001 bringing the total to some 2.7 to 3 million. Over this period traffic is forecast to grow by the order of 1% to 2% per annum in outer and inner London and by less than 1% per annum in central areas”[17] but there were no plans for car restraint measures, bar the use of parking controls to try and manage congestion.
At the heart of its strategic advice, LPAC had agreed a four-fold vision for London:
During this work it became clear that London’s future role as a world city was a matter of general concern to a wide spectrum of involved London opinion. There was, however, no technical work being undertaken on a broad co-ordinated basis to consider what London could or should do to sustain and enhance its position in an increasingly competitive world, or what could be learnt from other world cities’ successes or failures. LPAC officers put a proposal to the elected members that they should commission and lead on such a project: London as a world city.
LPAC sought financial and support-in-kind from a wide range of interested parties and received financial backing from The Corporation of London, Greater London Arts, The London Docklands Development Corporation, London Transport and Westminster City Council. The advisory body included academics, the Bank of England, the CBI and observers from government departments of transport and the environment.
The report argued for a turning point in the narrative about cities – after the “death” of cities in the 1970s and 80s when inner-city populations fell, fiscal problems mounted up, infrastructure decayed and economic and cultural activity was dispersed to the regions – with New York city as the prime example.
“The problems have not disappeared, but the stabilisation or growth of urban populations coupled with a growing appreciation of the central role played by cities in the economic and cultural life of a nation has encouraged the view that cities should be supported and developed. And positively planned rather than simply resigned to decline.”[18]
The potential for London to act as the gateway to the British economy, for it to develop as an international capital of finance, knowledge and arts and tourism was clearly set there.
The focus for the research was a single question:
What is London’s future competitiveness as a world city and how can this position be sustained and enhanced by the appropriate urban policy framework?
In drawing up a list of competitor world cities the report based the selection on an approximate assessment of how world cities were positioned in relation to three key features of their global performance – their status as centres of financial and commercial activity, communication and administration, and culture and knowledge.
This generated a list including London, New York, Tokyo and Paris and because of the impending changes in the global economy, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the creation of the single European market, the report included Frankfurt and Berlin.
Businesses in London, the UK and abroad were surveyed to better understand the limitations of London’s attractiveness as a location for investment. Residents and commuters were surveyed to capture and quantify a sense of the quality of life through their lived experience. London fared poorly from both perspectives. Businesses raised concerns about London’s poor education and training system, residents worried about crimes against the person and air pollution, but what stood out for both sets of respondents was the inadequate reliability of the public transport system and the poor quality of the transport environment. The report concluded that the “continuing lack of a coordinated approach to transport in the broadest terms must be regarded as detrimental to London’s long-term prospects.”[19]
Less of an action plan, the report was rather a rallying cry to city leaders, government and business. The report identified the steps that were needed to boost London’s competitive position and there was a vision of what London could become around which all stakeholders, public, private, third sector, could support.
The report’s launch in November 1991 at the Guildhall in the City attracted over 150 attendees from across London’s sectors and there was widespread press coverage. It marked a turning point in London’s evolution. Some fifteen years later Professor Greg Clark dedicated a chapter of his book ‘The making of a World City: London 1991-2021’ to LPAC’s London World City report and commented that: “The content of this report was ground-breaking, and its impact on London’s business and policy community considerable. It is no exaggeration to describe it as helping to usher in a new chapter in London’s 2000-year history.” [20]
And while “London: World City” did not call for a return to a centralised metropolitan administration, it argued that “all successful world cities need a process for strategic land use and transport planning with effective channels for implementation”[21]. It contrasted London’s uncoordinated transport system with Paris’s integrative regional masterplan and Tokyo’s cohesive financing arrangements. It also illustrated the widespread existence of citywide planning in European cities.” Professor Clark highlighted how the World City report was prophetic in anticipating the rise of the information-led economy and hence the vital important of education and what we would now call life-long learning.
Supported by business, grounded in an extensive data rich evidence base and with cross-party support, central government could not afford to ignore it. With the 1992 election only months away the Conservative Party manifesto had its own London section which drew heavily on the World City report’s analysis and prognosis. Two specific London policy commitments were to follow; a single minister was to be given responsibility for co-ordinating London’s transport services and a new private sector forum (which was to become London First) was convened to promote London’s position internationally.
Following the Conservative party’s general election victory in 1992, a cabinet sub-committee for London was appointed and chaired by the secretary of state for the environment, John Gummer. A minister for London and a minister for transport in London were created.
Integrated government offices for the regions in England, including the Government Office for London (GOL), were set up in 1994. GOL’s main tasks included distributing regional funds and capital expenditure on housing, strategic land-use planning and acting as a focal point of contact with the boroughs, the voluntary and private sector.
London First grew out of Business in the Community[22] and was set up to be an independent voice for the promotion and improvement of London. It was led by Lord Sheppard and Sir Stephen O’Brien. It had the support of around 300 businesses and in time the boroughs. LPAC members, including Nicky, were appointed to be directors. London First Centre, a wholly owned subsidiary of London First, operated as the inward investment agency for London receiving funding from the DTI, London local authorities and the private sector.
In 1994, the government invited London, Birmingham and Manchester to participate in a ‘City Pride’ initiative. Each city would prepare a ‘prospectus’ setting out a vision for the development of the city over a 15-20 year time horizon. While in Birmingham and Manchester the city councils were given the responsibility for delivering such a vision, in London, due to the absence of a metropolitan government, London First took the lead in setting up the London Pride Partnership. London First was chaired jointly by Allen Sheppard and Toby Harris (Chair of the Association of London Government). The London Pride Partnership succeeded in bringing together most of the significant players – LPAC, the business sector, the boroughs, the voluntary organisations – in order to produce its 1995 London Pride Prospectus. This document stressed economic competitiveness and business growth, but also social cohesion and environmental concerns and set out targets and action points. However, what the prospectus clearly lacked was any capacity to implement the strategy, nor did it have any mechanism for long-term democratic accountability.
A more benign attitude from government towards LPAC was apparent after the 1992 election – there were frequent meetings with ministers, where in the past there had been virtually none. LPAC was tasked with producing a new set of advice to feed into the government’s work on the 1995 Strategic Guidance for London. The 1996 Strategic Advice was the outcome of two years of study and its transport chapter set out how transport policy working within an explicit development framework would support a strong economy, a good quality of life and a sustainable future.
As the strategic advice commented “Technical studies have confirmed that LPAC’s transport strategy is robust and have shown that current Government policies and proposals are inadequate.”
LPAC’s transport strategy involved three inter-related components and their associated policy objectives.
One of the key policy initiatives set out in the strategic advice was the proposal for a ‘locational framework’. “The planning process in London should maximise access to new development by public transport, walking, cycling and, where appropriate water. It should involve a locational framework for development that takes into account actual and potential non-car accessibility. For land uses that generate a large number of person trips, and often longer journey to work trips, high levels of public transport accessibility are critical.”[24]
To this end LPAC proposed a classification of locations according to their transport characteristics, capacity and accessibility, which could be applied to different sizes and types of development and to a variety of locations.
However, “such an interactive transport and development strategy needs to be consistent with, and supported by, the government’s approach. Local authorities are concerned about the government’s vagueness and lack of integration of transport and development policies and actions for London. Three aspects of this are particularly important: the management of the transport network; the links with air quality, noise and healthier environment; and the need for co-ordinated approach.”[25]
LPAC called for more effective use of road space and a significant increase in the quality of travel by public transport. This might require a re-allocation of highway capacity in favour of non-car modes, including parts of the strategic road network. It would be complemented with pricing and charging policies for the use of road space, parking and public transport services and infrastructure investment decisions.
In terms of tackling air quality, noise and creating a healthier environment, the key was a broader based transport and development strategy aimed at reducing car travel and bringing about a modal shift in favour of public transport use, walking and cycling.
Targets needed to be set for stabilising and then reducing CO2 emissions and other air pollutants. Monitoring was key and LPAC supported the establishment of a London-wide air quality monitoring network.
LPAC was confident that in the longer-term land use and transport planning could reduce dependency on and use of the car, however in the short to medium term there was a need for more immediate traffic restraint measures. In the 1988 Advice LPAC had asked government to undertake an authoritative study of the potential of road pricing as a major tool of demand management – at this point in 1994 it was still waiting for the outcome of the subsequently commissioned three-year research programme undertaken by the DfT.
LPAC noted that while traffic restraint had focused on central London and peak hours traffic, related problems were spreading throughout inner London and on to outer London town centres, the major radials and the M25. “In many respects it is in these areas where restraint-based packages, along with complementary land use and transport policies are most needed to extend the period over which development can be sustained and to prevent deterioration in air quality and the environment.”[26]
The government’s response in its 1996 strategic guidance was again disappointing. While recognising that there was a need to promote greater use of less polluting modes of transport, subject to the needs to maintain competitiveness and safety, the main policy tool remained, in the short-term, parking policy. Over the longer-term, government recognised that boroughs should identify locations and allocate sites for development which would be consistent with generating less total travel, promoting the use of public transport and other non-car modes. This would create greater opportunities for activity based on forms of transport other than the car and reduce the journey length of those trips which are made by car.
A very significant piece of work came out in 1994 that would help shape government thinking about the future for transport. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s twentieth report on transport and the environment (1994) set out its views on the future direction of transport policy. [27]
The main conclusions were:
The commission’s detailed conclusions included that the government should make more use of economic instruments to encourage use of fuels which were less damaging to the environment, and to reduce fuel consumption. It should set increasingly challenging targets for reducing transport carbon dioxide emissions and, if necessary, support European legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
Government needed to support an integrated public transport system – primarily focused at local level, though with appropriate recognition of the regional dimension – as this would offer many advantages. Buses should have a central role in an environmentally sustainable transport system, and local authorities needed stronger powers to ensure they provided a quality service.
Charging for use of roads within specified areas, and control of private non-residential parking would increase the efficiency with which the road network was used and reflect more clearly the environmental and social costs involved. The introduction of charging should, however, be a local decision and any revenue raised spent locally to finance public transport and other infrastructure improvements.
Transport plans should be integrated with land use plans to reduce the need to travel, distances travelled, and dependence on lorries. Plans should be long term, and co-ordinated at the regional level.
In an article titled “Head-on collision over transport: The British government has received its sternest warning yet that its unflagging support for the car is seriously at odds with its own green principles”,[28] the New Scientist commented “Rarely, if ever, can a ministry have emerged so badly from an official report as John MacGregor’s (then secretary of state for transport) old department.”
Concerns about London’s traffic congestion in the mid 1990s did however lead the DfT to create the London Congestion Charging Research Programme[29] (this later went into the Government Office for London). Its 1995 report concluded that a congestion charge would reduce congestion, offer rapid payback of the initial setup costs, and generate net revenues as well as broader net economic benefits. The report proposed a £4 toll on vehicles entering a central London zone but the work looked manly at ‘electronic road pricing’ that would require the fitting of ‘in-vehicle units’ (IVUs) to vehicles moving within the charging area. Given the complexity of fitting and administrating the IVUs, the then government concluded that a road user charging scheme using electronic road pricing and special in-vehicle equipment could not be implemented at that time. Nevertheless, the government published a green paper “Transport: The Way Forward” in 1996, which stated that it would discuss with local authorities and other interested parties how best to take matters forward, with a presumption in favour of introducing legislation to enable congestion charging to be implemented.
Meanwhile, London First had been pressing government ministers about the need for an integrated transport plan for London, but the Treasury seemed reluctant to put resource into such a project, partly on ideological grounds but also because they realised that it would be extensive and transformative. Irving Yass, who had been director of planning and transport at the DfT and later at GOL, was appointed director of transport for London First in 1995. This gave him the opportunity to, in his words, “try and do what I wasn’t allowed to do within government and try to get some sort of strategic overview.”
London First’s Transport Initiative Business Plan: Planning Together for Success set out the detailed framework to “improve London’s competitiveness and quality of life by creating a world class transport system for London by 2015 which is economically, environmentally and financially sustainable.” The business plan sought to identify the responsibility for action amongst different organisations and to set a realistic programme for achieving it. A vision of what London’s transport system could be like in 2015 was established and a business case, based on various modelling exercises largely focused on ensuring London’s competitiveness and improving the quality of life, led into a section on priorities for action.
London First noted that realising the vision for 2015 (of fewer car journeys, more walking and cycling, a new generation of rail services – eg Cross Rail and the Chelsea to Hackney line, better orbital travel, deeper international links, better use of the Thames and improved transport/land-use investment) would involve action over an extended period. While some measures were able to be taken quickly, others would involve lengthy planning procedures or new legislation.
London First noted that GOL had just completed a 3-year study of congestion charging in London and while the benefits achieved by traffic restraint were significant, there were technical and administrative issues which “will be difficult to overcome”. The report noted that “Most road users would suffer a net increase in costs, public acceptability remains problematic and there is likely to be political opposition. Nevertheless, it is likely that sooner or later charging will have to be introduced in central London, and perhaps most of inner London as the only way of maintaining accessibility and a civilised environment. It is however an essential condition that the substantial revenue generated should be used to increase the funding available for London’s transport systems, both to improve the infrastructure and to reduce bus and rail fares. A good deal of work remains to be done to develop the necessary technology, devise the operational system, carry out proper consultation, design an acceptable scheme and enact and implement legislation. Given the lead time involved, it is important that preparatory work should be put in hand so that the option of introducing charging is available in the next 10 to 15 years.”[30]
In an interview with Nicky Gavron, Irving Yass commented on London First’s strategy, “What we did was to approach the members [of London First] on the basis of raising money to help fund the transport system, rather than how to restrain traffic. And we looked at various options, one of them around workplace pricing charge. And the other one, which was the charge to drive into central London. And the very, very strong view of the members was that they preferred the charging option. So we then thought, well, it’s all about talking about it as a theoretical issue. What we’re going to do is to commission a fairly quick overview, this new study of which Steve Morris, as minister for transport for London, was quite involved in setting up. And he raised some of the funding for it. The rest of the funding came from London First members, and we hired Michelle Dix from Halcrow Fox [as a consultant] to do an outline project. And that came up with sort of basic parameters of which the charging area proposed was very much what was eventually designed, and we decided on a £5 a day charge to drive in central London which was very much what was eventually implemented.”[31]
In the 1992-97 parliament, there were a number of backbench private members’ bills and 10-minute rule bills that attempted to impose binding traffic reduction targets on local and national governments. Most of them were brought forward by Plaid Cymru MP Cynog Dafis. The government was not however convinced by the arguments behind traffic reduction targets, arguing that there was too great a risk of imposing costs on society that would not be justified by the benefits produced.
Nevertheless, in a show of compromise The Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997[32] introduced the concept of local targets for road traffic reduction but did not identify specific figures; local authorities were expected to set their own targets for reducing either existing levels of traffic, or the anticipated growth of traffic, on local roads. The 1997 Act was significant as it represented the first time that the reduction of traffic was endorsed in legislation as a general policy, supported by government and all political parties.
A year later further legislation aimed at reducing traffic was passed in the Road Traffic Reduction (National targets) Act 1998. Initially the bill proposed that the secretary of state should adopt an explicit set of targets for reducing road traffic levels over the following decade, so that by 2010 road traffic in the UK would fall by 10% from its 1990 level. However, there were many critics of the idea of national targets who argued that targets set should address the problems caused by excess traffic, not the traffic itself (ie that targets should tackle the problems of congestion, air quality and noise). The idea was dropped and instead there was a proposal to allow the government to use indicators other than road traffic to set targets if it considered that they would be more appropriate for the purpose of reducing the adverse impacts of road traffic. Such ‘adverse impacts’ were spelt out in the bill and included such factors as air quality, congestion and accidents.
At around the same time the new Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions published its White Paper “A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone” in July 1998. The white paper advocated a new approach to mobility through an integrated transport programme explicitly recognising that it was impossible to keep building new roads to accommodate ever growing traffic. Tackling congestion and emissions were at the heart of the new programme of action. It referenced the value of the Royal Commission report and was determined to link national policy initiatives to local ones, including requiring the Greater London authority (GLA) to produce an integrated transport strategy.
On the issue of traffic restraint, the white paper promised to introduce legislation to enable local authorities to levy a new parking charge on workplace parking. This charge would not apply to residential parking. The government proposed that owners or occupiers of business premises would apply for a licence to allow a certain number of vehicles to be parked on site. The aim was to reduce the amount of parking available as a means of reducing car journeys and increasing use of public transport, walking and cycling.
But the white paper noted, “experience has shown that improving public transport and related traffic management measures whilst necessary are not sufficient in many cases. We will therefore introduce legislation to allow local authorities to charge road users so as to reduce congestion, as part of a package of measures in a local transport plan that would include improving public transport. The use of revenues to benefit transport serving the area where charges apply, which in many cases will mean supporting projects in more than one local authority area, will be critical to the success of such schemes.”[33]
The government proposed that the London mayor’s transport strategy would cover London-wide strategies for the bus and cycle priority network, and for freight, parking and walking. There would be a more strategic approach to parking in London, with a more determined use of parking charges and controls, such as controlled parking zones. London boroughs would frame local implementation plans to give effect to these strategies and the GLA would have powers to ensure that borough plans were in accordance with its overall strategy for London.
The GLA Act included powers to introduce road user charging and a levy on parking spaces. This gave the mayor important tools for tackling congestion and air pollution, especially in central London. This would also generate extra revenue which could be used for the improvements in public transport that would be essential to cater for a significant modal shift in London. With these powers, and the direct responsibilities listed above, the government believed that the mayor would be able to formulate and deliver a truly integrated transport policy for London.
LPAC’s supplementary advice on a strategy for traffic reduction took forward previous work on devising an environmentally sustainable transport strategy for London. In particular, it sought to develop and update LPAC’s work on demand management in the light of the Road Traffic Reduction Act (RTRA) and the requirements under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995 for local authorities to take the lead in a new system of local air quality management (LAQM). It also built on advice on traffic targets as set out in the integrated land use and transport strategy in its 1994 strategic advice. [34]
The supplementary advice drew heavily upon the results of a consultancy study carried out by Halcrow Fox in association with South-East Institute of Public Health (SEIPH). Examples from other cities such as Trondheim which had a toll for entering the city and Singapore’s area licensing scheme were studied. The consultants’ final report entitled ‘Developing Road Traffic Reduction Targets for London’ was published in December 1998 as a companion document to the draft supplementary advice which was published at the start of a consultation exercise in January 1999 to run for three months. A leaflet version for consultation with the general public was published with a foreword by Nicky.
Following the consultation exercise in early 1999, LPAC commissioned Halcrow Fox to carry out further work amending the targets, the strategy and its impact, in the light of the results of the consultation exercise and other policy developments. An important feature of the study and the supplementary advice was that the traffic reduction targets should relate to all roads in London as the GLA would be responsible for the Red Routes and the primary route network.
A final version of the report was published in December 1999. Stage 1 of the Study sought to set ‘needs’-based road traffic reduction targets for London through an examination of the impact that current traffic activity had on the day-to-day lives of Londoners. This work highlighted a number of issues or problems in London that needed to be addressed such as poor air quality and increased congestion on the roads.
The consultants’ report highlighted the following general conclusions:
All of the above pointed toward the need to reduce 1997 traffic levels (ie vehicle kilometres driven) by around 15-20% across London by 2005. However, in order that such reductions could be focussed on those areas where traffic and environmental conditions were worse, higher traffic reduction targets would be necessary in central and inner London, with lower targets in outer London.
The position with regard to air quality was complex. Air quality predictions relating to background locations could underestimate roadside concentrations by up to 30%. Improvements in fuel and vehicle technology were expected to help cut emissions and there were elements that were beyond government control such as prolonged periods of air movements from mainland Europe.
In reviewing modelling work by both SEIPH and the government, LPAC found that for air quality purposes, traffic management policies would have to be much more subtle and selective in their approach and that traffic management policies would therefore appear to be important in influencing the number of roadside locations exceeding the objectives, but less so for background locations.
Initially LPAC sought a London wide road traffic reduction target of 20%, with specific targets of 40% for central London, 30% for inner and 15% for outer London. Following consultation and lobbying from outer London boroughs who argued that their targets were too difficult to achieve especially within the 2005 deadline, LPAC endorsed an overall traffic reduction target of 15% and reduced the outer London area wide target from 15% to 10%. There was a separate target for the three km area around Heathrow. Further modelling work revised down the targets for central and inner London and extended the deadline to 2010.
The final agreed traffic reduction targets were set such that within the Corporation of London, City of Westminster and Camden there would be a 30% reduction sought, 25% in Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, RBKC, 20% in Brent, Greenwich, Lewisham, Newham and Wandsworth, 15% in Ealing, Hounslow, Merton, Richmond and Waltham Forest and 10% for the rest.
Stage 2 of the study sought to assess the practicality of the ‘needs’-based traffic reduction targets as set out above. Initially, this involved an examination of the type of traffic reduction mechanisms currently available to local authorities and central government and the ability of these mechanisms to reduce traffic levels effectively in London.
LPAC set out the specific measures it felt were capable of delivering road traffic reduction (each with varying levels of success):
LPAC concluded that following a detailed examination of the potential impact of each of these mechanisms to achieve road traffic reduction, the greatest contribution to meeting the Stage One targets was likely to come from travel related charges and parking controls.
The strategy that LPAC recommended included the following components:
Early introduction in 2001 of increased long stay car parking charges and the extension of controlled parking zone (CPZ) coverage into the outer areas of London. In parallel, voluntary forms of traffic restraint, such as green transport plans, ‘safe routes to schools’ and travel awareness/education initiatives, should be expanded. These measures were aimed at increasing public awareness and laying the foundations for future improvements in alternative transport modes to the private car.
In 2003, new fiscal measures should be introduced in central London in the form of an area licensing scheme of £5 per day and a workplace parking levy of £1,5000 per annum. The effects of this area charge was estimated to deter some 14% of traffic in central London. Net revenues generated from both of these fiscal measures was estimated to be around £300m a year and should be hypothecated to support walking, cycling and public transport improvements.
In parallel, public long stay parking charges, both on-street and off-street, should be increased further. Road space should be reallocated on a more radical basis and voluntary traffic reduction mechanisms stepped up to a higher level.
Subsequently, between 2003 and 2006, road user and workplace parking charges should be progressively increased and extended, with the central London area licence charge increased to £7.50 and a £3.75 charge introduced in inner London (ie the area between the inner ring road and the North and South Circular). The workplace parking levy should be increased to £2,000 per annum in central London and a complimentary £2,000 per annum charge introduced in inner London. Again, all revenues should be hypothecated to support walking, cycling and public transport improvements.
Finally, in 2010 the strategy envisaged that the area licensing scheme would be replaced by a London wide distance related road user charge scheme (with differential charges in central, inner and outer London) and the workplace parking levy replaced by a London wide full private non-residential (PNR) parking levy of £3,000 per annum.
Against a background of steadily increasing underlying traffic growth, these measures working together in a complimentary fashion would, LPAC estimated, reduce traffic in central and inner London by around a third by 2010, compared to 1997 levels and by 10% in outer London.
The public debate
The publication of the Reducing Road traffic in London draft strategy created quite a stir. The report was commented on by the regional and national press. The Daily Telegraph published a piece “Drivers face £7,000 charges” stating that “Drivers taking their cars into central London would face tolls and parking charges of up to £7,000 a year.” The paper stated that the report concluded that higher penalties for motorist provided the most effective way of reducing congestion, with improvements to public transport likely to have little effect. The piece finished with comments by the RAC and the British Road Federation complaining about motorists being priced out of their cars.
A piece in the Evening Standard on the draft strategy, “London declares war on the car as drive starts to cut traffic by up to 40%” begins “The toughest attack yet on car use was unveiled today, spearheaded by proposals to triple parking charges and introduce levies of £3.50 to entre central areas.” Nicky Gavron is quoted as saying that “traffic is top of most people’s list of concerns about living and working in London. Half the children in London who live on main roads have asthma. Congestion costs business billions of pounds a year. The only way to tackle these problems is by reducing traffic.”
Another piece highlighted the claim that “£7,000 cost of driving in London will ‘hit the economy’” the Evening Standard quoted the British Road Federation (BRF) saying that LPAC’s proposals would place a “massive” financial burden on drivers and that a motorist driving into the centre of the capital from outer London would have to pay three times to cross ‘cordons’ under plans unveiled by LPAC. Alongside quotes from the BRF, the piece quoted the London Chamber of Commerce which warned that “adding more charges could be dangerous – London contributes one-fifth of the country’s economic output. If the scheme damages business it will have a knock-on effect for all of the UK.” The Federation of Small Business was quoted as saying that “we want to encourage people into shopping areas not drive them away” and London First commented that “If London authorities simply embark on a policy of penalising road users they will damage London’s economy and create a predictable backlash. We must look for alternative ways of tackling pollution.”
In a response to the article, a letter sent to the Evening Standard “Jams today, gridlock tomorrow” signed by the party group leaders on LPAC, Nicky Gavron, Martin Elengord, Alexander Nicholl and Archie Galloway, tried to shift the debate away from a focus on the impact of the charges on drivers and more about how the city would benefit from less congestion:
“Road congestion is losing London businesses billions each year and there are many streets in London where relentless traffic has caused many shops and businesses to close down. Our proposed strategy sets out a ten-year programme covering a broad package of measures. This could include: making it safer to walk and cycle, freeing up road space for commercial vehicles and essential business trips, to make London’s economy work; creating new road space for buses; and the introduction of road user charges from about 2003. You focus on the last of these – what it would cost the driver financially, but not on how much the car culture costs us all, including the driver, in terms of our health and our environment. The point is all the revenue raised will go to providing and improving alternatives to using the car. Our approach is not anti-car but we must learn to use cars more selectively. The priority targets are the long distance commuter travelling into central London from the shires or outer suburbs and the 20% of car trips in London which are less than a quarter of a mile.”
Public debate intensified, there were local and regional meetings held to discuss how best to reduce traffic and the debate raged across the letters and comment pieces of the press. Lex, the car leasing company, which regularly surveyed a representative (1,297) sample of British motorists published the results of a survey which showed that 80% of motorists believed that congestion problems were very serious in London, with 77% stating that pollution problems in the capital are very serious – Lex welcomed the chance for local authorities to spend money on local problems. On the same day, Lex published the results of another survey they produced which found that 75% of motorists who travelled to work in their car would still not use public transport even if public transport costs were halved, motorway tolls were introduced or drivers were charged for entering city centres. However, drilling down a bit more into the data, 54% of motorists said charging to go into the centre would make no difference when commuting but only 32% said the same about shopping – with around a half saying it would make them do the journey less often. The surveys were written up by the Evening Standard under the heading “Britons still love their cars.”
Business was keen to have its voiced listened to. London First completed a study which looked at business responses to a possible levy on workplace parking. It found that business preferred some form of congestion charging scheme to a tax on workplace parking. The former was considered to be more likely to be effective in reducing congestion and more acceptable. This led London First, in partnership with the Centre for the Management of Traffic and the Environment (CMTE) to also commission Halcrow Fox to look at the practical issues involved in congestion charging in London. As well as the technical assessment this work included a number of focus group discussions with business, residents’ representatives and interested bodies.
The objectives, area to be covered and the outlines of a possible scheme were similar to that produced by LPAC. Based on a £5 charge, the consultants estimated that there might be a reduction in traffic of between 10-15%. This would lead to a number of benefits: improved journey reliability, increased traffic speeds, and environmental improvements. On the downside, there would be a direct cost of £55m to business for commercial vehicles operating in central London.
The projected revenue was in the region of £200m gross (with £140m from car trips), with set up and running costs in the order of £50m. From the net revenue generated, the immediate transport priority should be to complete the bus priority network and then move on to a second generation of improvements based around more and cleaner buses, quality bus driver training, cashless buses, real time information and more. Other improvements could include improved security around underground and rail stations, the improvement of travel interchanges, and the pedestrianisation of public squares.
The only major aspect in which this proposal differed from the eventual scheme was how it was to be enforced. The scheme envisaged by London First was a paper based permit that would have to be bought from a variety of retailers and displayed on the windscreen. Traffic wardens would then check that people had put the permit on their cars. Given the low priority of traffic policing, the mayor might then have to finance a special unit to enforce the cordon and blitz the area.
The support of London First was vital in demonstrating not only that getting such a scheme up and running was technically and administratively possible but also palatable to the business community that would be affected. As Irving Yass noted in his interview with Nicky Gavron, London First’s role “was basically to get the business community behind the idea. Essentially, it made sense for a large number of the members who were [mainly] large employers whose staff came to work by public the transport. These firms saw it in their interest to charge drivers and have more funding available for transport. The only major dissent, I think, among members came from [retailers] John Lewis who were worried about increased costs, but otherwise I think we had 95% support among the members. And I think that’s something that helped Ken Livingstone when he came to do it.”
While the CBI was also broadly in support of the scheme, the London Chamber of Commerce with its membership of small and medium sized businesses had a tougher job preventing a backlash. The City Corporation was also behind the scheme. While they opposed the proposal to charge for off-street parking, the City was mined with underground car parks, they recognised the value of the charge both in reducing congestion in the City centre which would speed up business journey times and having more funds to invest in public transport which their growing workforce relied on.
The independent ROCOL (Review of Charging Options for London) Working Group, was formed in August 1998, under the chairmanship of Eugene Turton (director of GOL) with a mix of academics, members of transport associations, and government officials including LPAC. It synthesised much of the earlier material to produce a blueprint for a future mayor and published its final report in early 2000 just a few months before the mayoral elections.
The stated purpose of the working group was to provide an assessment of illustrative options for use of the powers that would be available to the new mayor of London. This meant looking at road user charging and workplace parking levy schemes. A range of consultants were commissioned to produce technical reports into all aspects of setting up the schemes, including large surveys of Londoners to assess public and business opinion.
While there were clear attractions of introducing an electronic system given its flexibility to discriminate by vehicle type, road type, time of day and so on, national technical and billing standards plus the need to manufacture and distribute in-vehicle units meant that any scheme could not be introduced for 5 or 6 years. The ROCOL report therefore concentrated on feasible shorter-term options – simple paper-based systems or those using ANPR.
The ROCOL report looked at a number of options for the boundary of a charging scheme and settled on a central charging cordon (ie roughly the City and Westminster, with bits of Camden, Islington, Hackney and Lambeth and Southwark and Tower Hamlets). The pros and cons (convenience, compliance, enforcement) of a paper-based system and a system using the ANPR were compared. An illustrative scenario of a central London area licence charging £5 per car and £15 for HGVs, using number plate database and digital camera enforcement was set out covering all elements of getting the scheme up and running and ensuring that it worked effectively.
The ROCOL report found that the number of car journeys to and from within the central area would be reduced by 20%, with little change in commercial vehicle movements in the central area. There could be a transfer of 30,000 car occupants to public transport in the morning peak period and central area vehicle speeds would increase from 16 km/h to 18 km/h. Implementation costs would be around £30-£50m, annual costs would also run between £30-£50m. With charge revenues expected at between £230m-£280m per year, net benefits would run at around £200m per annum which would be available to spend on public transport investment and so create positive incentives to support more people to use the bus, train, and rail.
Transport was front and centre in the mayoral candidates’ manifestos as they vied for support during 1999 and into 2000. Despite having the newly created position of mayor been granted the powers to introduce road user charging, only Ken Livingstone, standing as an Independent candidate, Susan Kramer, the Liberal Democrat candidate and Darren Johnson, the Green Party candidate argued in favour of measures to reduce traffic flows in London.
The Conservative candidate Steve Norris, who as transport minister for London supported GOL’s research on road user charging and helped to deliver funding for London First’s technical work on the topic, did an about-turn on traffic restraint and launched his manifesto under the slogan ’Action not Politics’ with the argument that the job of mayor was more about managerial and technical issues than political ideology – which is what, he argued, you would get with Ken.
Norris’s policies were described as “a calculated display of apolitical populism drawing on his experience as the former minister for London.”[35] The word ‘Conservative’ did not appear on his material. He was against the workplace parking tax and congestion charging and he rejected the Public Private Partnership (PPP) for the underground, which he dismissed as far too expensive. He proposed a ‘transport smartcard’ which could be used like a phonecard on the bus, train or tube and 24-hour tube services for the tube at weekends and night buses all week. He promised to freeze tube fares, introduce a flat rate 70p bus fare, bring in air-conditioned trains, abolish penalty fares and build the new Crossrail, Chelsea-Hackney, west London and east London lines using private finance. He would charge contractors for digging up the roads, impose a daytime roadwork ban, construct a 2000 mile cycle route network and keep lorries out of London during peak hours.
Frank Dobson, the Labour Party candidate, launched his manifesto with the slogan ‘No to Privatisation, No to the Congestion Charge’ as his back drop and tried to diminish Ken’s candidacy by stating “This is no time for a punt on a fun candidate…The mayor and the GLA’s £3.5 billion budget is not something to be risked on a candidate who prefers gesture politics and political correctness to pragmatic detailed policies.”[36]
“The policy point Labour had locked on to was congestion charging. Livingstone was on record as saying he wanted to cut traffic in London by 15%, but Dobson argued that Livingstone’s proposed £5 a day – or £100 a month – fee to enter central London would not even begin to discourage that many motorists. Even a charge of £300 a month would not be enough Dobson warned.”[37]
Dobson’s manifesto pledged no rise in the GLA precept and no congestion charge in his first term as mayor, as well as sticking to the PPP for the tube. Other policy ideas included that every Londoner should have a named local police officer to contact, there should be a London lottery and a proposal for an annual “Sunday Out” for Londoners, with the city centre closed to traffic and free entry to museums. There were also pledges to create 100,000 jobs, plant 100,000 trees and provide 10,000 affordable homes for key workers.
Ken Livingstone opposed the PPP for modernising the tube, committed to recruit 2,000 more police officers, and made a vague demand that ‘more of what Londoners and London business pay in taxes must return to London’. The manifesto quoted an estimate that Londoners paid £19 billion more in tax than was spent in the city. He also restated his determination to tackle congestion in central London; he promised that he would consult on a congestion charging scheme, to start halfway through his term of office, when public transport improvements were in place.
On 4 May 2000, Londoners made their choice. The congestion charge, introduced in 2003, would come to be the most significant policy initiative introduced at a regional level and the one Livingstone’s entire term in office would ultimately be remembered for.
[1] LPAC, Strategic planning advice, LPAC 1988, Chapter 7.
[2] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.20.4.157
[3] Op.cit. LPAC
[4] John Davis Waterloo Sunrise: London from the sixties to Thatcher, Princeton University Press, March 2022, chapter 6, “You only have to look at the Westway” The end of the urban motorway in London.
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/13/londons-lost-mega-motorway-the-eight-lane-ring-road-that-would-have-destroyed-much-of-the-city
[6] Op. cit. John Davis
[7] Greater London Council, The GLDP, GLC 1984 page 61
[8] https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1978/apr/28/archway-road-london-public-inquiry
[9] https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/the-archway-inquiry-a-first-hand-account/
[10] https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/the-archway-inquiry-a-first-hand-account/?highlight=archway%20inquiry
[11] https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/the-archway-inquiry-a-first-hand-account/?highlight=archway%20inquiry
[12] Minister of State (DfT) Lynda Chalker https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1984/may/11/archway-road-north-london-inquiry
[13] LPAC, Strategic Planning Advice for London: Policies for the 1990s, LPAC, October 1988, paragraph 7.1
[14] LPAC Op.cit. paragraph 7.2
[15] LPAC op.cit. paragraph 7.6
[16] LPAC op.cit. paragraph 7.23
[17] Department of the Environment, Strategic Planning Guidance for London, HMSO, July 1989, paragraph 34
[18] LPAC, London World City, HMSO 1991, page 2.
[19] LPAC, The World City report, HMSO, 1991, page 130
[20] Greg Clark, The making of a World City: London 1991-2021, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, quote from the Introduction to Chapter 1.
[21] LPAC Op.cit. page 128
[22] Business in the Community (BITC) was a charity established in the 1980s to encourage businesses to be more responsible and engaged with their local communities.
[23] LPAC Advice on Strategic Planning Guidance for London, LPAC, 1994, page 64
[24] Op.cit. LPAC p 65
[25] Ibid.
[26] Op.cit. LPAC p 75
[27] The RCEP was created under Royal Warrant in 1970 to advise the Monarch, Government and Parliament and the public on environmental issues. It was closed on 1 April 2011, as part of the Coalition Government’s spending cuts.
[28] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14419512-300-head-on-collision-over-transport-the-british-government-has-received-its-sternest-warning-yet-that-its-unflagging-support-for-the-car-is-seriously-at-odds-with-its-own-green-principles/ November 1994
[29] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.20.4.157
[30] London First’s Transport Initiative Business Plan: Planning Together for Success, 1995.
[31] Private interview, August 2023
[32] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00420/SN00420.pdf
[33] Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, White Paper “A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone” HMSO July 1998.
[34] In particular – policy advice statement T3 that Government should give guidance to establish targets for traffic levels and policy advice statement T4 that Boroughs should take the lead in promoting sustainability through setting local target traffic levels.
[35]Mark D’Arcy and Rory Maclean, Nightmare! The race to become London’s Mayor, Politico’s Publishing Ltd 2000.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid.
