The Congestion Charge and Your Business

Date published: 13/06/2008

The Government today announced Greater Manchester’s bid to secure an award of £1.5 billion from its Transport Innovation Fund has been successful.

If the proposals put forward in the bid are implemented after this summer’s public consultation, the city region will take on a supplementary loan of £1.3billion to fund public transport improvements. It will then also introduce the world’s largest congestion charging zone -100 sq miles within the entire M60 area, 12 times larger than the initial London charging zone - to repay this.

If the congestion charge is introduced, your business could face bills of up to £1,200 a year for every employee commuting to work as well as unlimited charges to move freight across congestion charge zone boundaries at peak hours. The true costs include increased business travel, recruitment and training bills.

This comes against the backdrop of the credit crunch, record fuel prices and increased road taxes. There are many robust, more cost effective and environmentally sound alternatives to a charge which would simply disadvantage the region economically and unfairly penalise our employees.

To challenge the charge proposals, more than 120 Greater Manchester businesses, from international companies such as Unilever and Kellogg’s to partnerships and sole traders representing almost every business sector, have formed the Greater Manchester Momentum Group.

We believe the most effective way to make our voices heard in the consultation about congestion charging and the broader transport agenda is to work together. In the West Midlands, businesses ensured charge proposals were rejected, by putting a coherent case to local authorities together.

We urge you to visit our website www.gmmgroup.co.uk to find out more and to join us. Our manifesto follows.



Yours sincerely,


Chris Wermann       Daniel Franks         Mike Lyons,             Andrew Simpson
Kellogg’s               SBS Networks     AK Worthington     Peel Holdings

Paul Henly

Federation of

Small business 


Greater Manchester Momentum Group Manifesto

Our Pledge

We will work with AGMA to look at alternative ways of tackling congestion and raising money for transport infrastructure that also meet our future environmental needs.

We will work with AGMA to assess best value for money for transport infrastructure improvements.

We call upon AGMA to allow GMMG and employers to study and comment publicly on the information it has used to develop its assumptions of success.

We will use our expertise to help AGMA address the flaws in the bid but if this cannot be done, we will lobby for its withdrawal.

GMMG members share the following concerns about congestion charging in Greater Manchester:

Scale: The proposed scheme goes overnight from zero to one significantly larger than any other scheme in the world. Therefore it is untested and a significant risk - the study of congestion within Greater Manchester will provide better insight over which areas need the greatest immediate and longer term investment.

Imbalance: The scheme will capture thousands of ordinary businesses and employees within the M60, but the expenditure on infrastructure for promised transport improvements is almost exclusively aimed at improving commuter journeys into Manchester city centre - the scheme should be developed to reflect the movement of people and goods within the Greater Manchester Region.

Ignores movement of goods: Businesses will pay significant road user charges yet all of the expenditure on infrastructure is on public transport to move people. None is directed at companies distributing freight or moving goods - a new infrastructure should focus on how to move the significant amount of goods made in Manchester for the rest of Britain and the world, with potentially huge benefits for the environment.

A cost of employment: Unlike in London, the charging zone covers many ordinary jobs with people on average wages who cannot afford to pay up to £100 per month. Inevitably employers will have to meet this cost or lose employees to firms outside the M60 - the charge should not be imposed on top of road tax, council tax, petrol tax and business rates already levied on individuals and businesses for infrastructural support.

No way back: If the economic assumptions that have been kept secret are wrong, Greater Manchester will be saddled with £1.8bn of debt over 30 years which means there will be no way of reversing a damaging scheme – an alternative solution for infrastructural changes over a period of time would have benefits for financing the debts. The past experience of investment in the Metrolink ran significantly over budget and time.

One dimensional: The proposals assume that no measures other than charging can reduce congestion. There appears to have been no work looking at other ways of easing traffic flow - there are many proven methods for tackling traffic in different scenarios.

Isolated: All political parties have distanced themselves from a national road pricing scheme which means Greater Manchester will become uniquely a more expensive place to do business and work, thereby damaging future job creation and investment – we should use tried and tested schemes first.

No guarantees: There are no guarantees on future pricing, the zone covered, the time the charge applies or the actual public transport delivered. In addition there is no guarantee that if a national scheme (e.g. motorway scheme) is introduced we will not end up paying twice on top of existing road taxes.

Technology: No detail has been provided on the technology which will support the scheme and abundant experience suggests that large scale IT projects carry huge risks of failure - a tried and tested model should be put in place first.