Opinion: There is no plan to introduce a congestion charge in the city

Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald has since released a statement accusing opposition councillors of plotting to bring in a congestion charge in Peterborough.

Sorry to disappoint you Wayne, but there is no plan, what congestion that does exist (mainly generated by multiple roadworks schemes being carried out at the same time) simply doesn’t meet the criteria whereby the government would allow for a charging scheme to be put in place. The Conservatives are well aware of this. You see in the absence of anything negative to say about opposition parties they have decided to be disingenuous and create a false narrative.

15-minute cities are not a new concept, in fact, Peterborough was an early adopter of the concept, except they were called townships when the development corporation was planning and building the new estates in Paston, Werrington, Bretton and Orton. The concept is simple when building housing: make sure that residents have things like shops, doctors’ surgeries, schools, parks and access to public transport within walking distance of their homes. Our enviable parkway system is a testament that there was no desire to punish car usage, just provide an alternative that meant that having a car wasn’t a necessity.

To be clear the 15-minute city concept does not impose any restrictions on citizens' freedom of movement. It aims to promote and support active travel by ensuring communities have what they need, like schools and GPs, closer to where they live.

Let’s have a quick look at the Tories track record when it comes to transport in the city, it was under the leadership of Marco Cereste that they banned cyclists from using Bridge Street and a route through the city. Just last year in November the Conservative cabinet agreed to the Local Area Energy Plan, which under the heading Transport stated “A low emissions zone could help accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.” For context a ULEZ zone would only affect petrol cars first registered before January 2006 or diesel cars registered before September 2015, currently only about 15% of the vehicles on the road. But again emission levels in Peterborough are well below the criteria whereby a scheme could be introduced by the government. Fun Fact the first ULEZ scheme was brought in by Boris Johnson when he was mayor for London.

This is simply a nonstory and a waste of council time debating a subject that no one is advocating for and even if they were, they would be unable to get approved by the central government. I can only assume that the Conservatives are gearing themselves up for a long time as opposition rather than administration. This city’s residents have now recognised that it is time for change and that the Tories have run out of ideas for our city.