Road pricing proposals rejected

Why road pricing plan failed

Plans for road pricing across the West Midlands have been shelved.

Councils across the region had been debating introducing a charge for people driving into cities such as Birmingham or Coventry at peak times.

The government had promised funding for transport projects in exchange for a road pricing pilot scheme.

But councillors have rejected a £5 charge, saying it would have had an impact in Birmingham but nowhere else in the surrounding towns and cities.

The charge would have applied to people driving into Birmingham, Coventry and parts of the Black Country at peak times.

'Good news'

But the report concluded the technology to introduce a scheme would not be available until 2021.

The report also said that without road pricing, congestion would get worse with journey times increasing by, on average, around 25% by 2017.

Councillor Roger Lawrence, Leader of Wolverhampton City Council and the region's "Transport Champion", said: "This report shows that congestion continues to be a problem, but currently road pricing does not offer the solution that we need."

John McGoldrick, of the National Alliance Against Tolls, said: "It is good news that the councils in the West Midlands have accepted that the overwhelming majority of people do not want tolls in any form.

"What is needed now is that the government must be persuaded to spend some of the £50 billion that it gets in taxes from drivers on improving the roads system to help traffic flow more smoothly."