Road charging in Cambridge is not ‘dead in the water’
Road charging is not “dead in the water” despite a majority of people opposing plans for a Cambridge congestion charge to fund public transport improvements.
Some 58 per cent of respondents to the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s Making Connections public consultation opposed the plans for a Sustainable Travel Zone (STZ), with 49 per cent of respondents “strongly” opposed.
St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge Picture: Keith Heppell.
However, just over a third (34 per cent) backed the congestion charge proposals, with 13 per cent saying they supported the zone and 21 per cent “strongly” supporting it.
The GCP has already indicated that the scheme as originally proposed “will need to change” but the results do not end the prospect of a congestion charge. Instead, consideration will now be given to how the scheme could be altered.
More than 24,000 people responded to the consultation, which proposed measures to transform the bus service funded by a congestion charge.
The charge would force car drivers to pay £5 to drive in Cambridge – even if they live in the city – with £10 charges for vans and a £50 fee for lorries. The fees would operate from 7am-7pm, Monday to Friday, raising money for a bus system that would operate for longer and with cheap, flat fares.
The consultation findings, which were finally published last Friday (May 26) and showed opposition increased with respondents’ age from 35 to 64, with 55 to 64-year-olds most likely to oppose it.
Those who lived outside of Cambridge were also more likely to oppose the zone than those who lived in the city.
Meanwhile, support for the proposals was highest among the youngest and the oldest respondents. Among those who opposed the zone, about half did support the GCP’s vision for better buses.
Overall, more than 70 per cent of respondents were in favour of the proposed future transport network.
There was a clear relationship between those who were supportive of the zone and bus improvements at a rate of 98 per cent. Support for the bus improvements only fell below 50 per cent when looking at respondents who ‘strongly opposed’ the zone.
The reasons for supporting or opposing the zone were numerous. But those who supported the proposals were keen to get more frequent bus services, be able to cycle more safely and were positive towards the idea of a charge to tackle climate change and reduce congestion.
Those who opposed felt proposed exemptions to the charges did not go far enough, and that the charge would be unfair, particularly on those travelling to Addenbrooke’s Hospital. There were also concerns about the impact the charge would have on jobs.
The results from the GCP’s Making Connections consultation Graphic: Cambridge Independent
Cllr Elisa Meschini, the Labour chair of the GCP’s executive board, said: “The consultation result does mean the current scheme is probably not going ahead. We’ve known for a while that might potentially be the case and in some respects, that’s absolutely fine.
“We need a conversation starter which is supposed to show you the scale of the challenge. What can’t be dead in the water is the repairing of services that are going down the pan.
“We’ve been told very loudly in this consultation that people are crying out for those services.”
Cllr Meschini said the STZ was “not dead in the water” adding: “But if anything is to happen, which we’re still not making that decision right now – we will need time to decide this, we need them to make an accountable decision and a responsible decision.
“The county council eventually needs to make a decision, which might mean nothing, but if they choose to do nothing and say this is the reason and this is what’s going to happen – be accountable for it. Because what is entirely clear is that people are actually expecting us to make a decision. It’s been going on and it will continue to go on because those 45,000 homes and 40,000 jobs are not disappearing.
“The fact that there’s no space on the roads for those people to go to those jobs is not disappearing. People know that – they’re not stupid.”
Alongside the consultation, the GCP also ran a demographically representative poll of 1,000 residents in the Cambridge Travel to Work area between December 15 and 22.
Results from the poll were looked at in conjunction with the questionnaire responses to demonstrate results from different data collection methods.
While results from the demographically representative poll found that levels of support for the zone were similar to the questionnaire (35 per cent), there were much lower levels of opposition, with 22 per cent strongly opposing and 14 per cent opposing the STZ.
Cllr Elisa Meschini, chair of the GCP executive board Picture: Keith Heppell
The difference could be accounted for in the much higher rate of respondents selecting ‘neither’ or ‘don’t know’ as their response (29 per cent), which was much higher than those that selected ‘don’t know’ in the questionnaire ( seven per cent).
Prof Andy Neely, the University of Cambridge’s senior pro vice-chancellor for enterprise and business relations and a GCP executive board member, said: “It’s a big challenge. I think we do need to continue to stress the strain on infrastructure we have in Cambridgeshire and we have to think differently about how we do things in the future. It’s going to be impossible to come up with something that everybody’s happy with.
“There are always going to be trade-offs, but I hope having had the feedback, the comments and the views and the richness of that data that we can find a way through that people think is alright and a sensible way of approaching this.”
Clir Brian Milnes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader at South Cambridgeshire District Council and a GCP executive board member, said: “We have heard people’s worries about the proposed changes, their concerns about a charge to drive into or across the city and its impact on their budgets. All of which is wholly understandable and we recognise how people feel.
“The consultation has also clearly told us a number of things that people really want in terms of better services and infrastructure. Respondents have told us where they want us to reconsider the proposals. So those proposals will need to change, and we will now take time to consider how, while delivering on the benefits people so clearly want to see.”
The findings were published in a report to the GCP’s joint assembly. It follows months of debate around the charge, during which two marches and rallies were held in opposition to it, and one was held in favour.
Cambridgeshire County Council leader Cllr Lucy Nethsingha Picture: Keith Heppell
Opponents have called for alternatives to road charging to be considered, such as workplace parking levy, light rail or a pollution charge. But the GCP did not assess a ‘plan B’ as part of its Making Connections consultation. It could, however, use the feedback to alter the scheme.
Removing Addenbrooke’s from the charging zone, for example, might appease some opponents of the scheme, but is logistically complicated, as those who live within Cambridge would still be charged to drive through the city to reach it. Instead, some kind of exemption scheme could be explored.
Cambridge University Hospitals, in its response to the consultation, sought reassurance that health providers would not bear the cost of running an exemption scheme for health workers.
Removing the whole Cambridge Biomedical Campus from the zone, meanwhile, would undermine the scheme’s potential to reduce congestion and raise funding.
Lynne Miles, director of City Access at the GCP, said the process of amending the proposals was a “real piece of string question”.
“The key question is it’s the politicians who decide whether and how we go forward, and this is the absolutely normal way of doing scheme development,” she explained.
Ms Miles added: “We’re already starting to think about the really clear steer we’ve had about what sorts of changes and some of them will be easier to accomplish and some of them will be harder to accomplish.
“People tell you they’re concerned about the hospital being in the zone. There are a number of ways of addressing that and not all of them are taking the hospital out of the zone.
“Although taking the hospital out sounds like a good solution. It is not a perfect solution because it is outside a red line for everyone from Cambridgeshire beyond Cambridge – but everyone in the city still has to pay.”
Ms Miles also explained that it was likely that more than one change would be needed to make the proposals work.
She continued: “I can quite understand that people are sort of thinking that in the current bus network, the current situation, if their choice is pay to drive or do something else at the moment, they feel trapped, they feel forced to pay.”
But she explained that the City Deal gave the GCP a chunk of money that no other city has been given to upfront pay for improvements to bus services.
“But I don’t think people heard that. I don’t think that came through in the public discourse,” she explained.
South Cambridgeshire MP Anthony Browne said: “The people have spoken and now the GCP should listen – and scrap the congestion charge. The Making Connections consultation was wildly skewed to elicit support for the scheme but couldn’t overcome the stark reality that Cambridgeshire residents are overwhelmingly opposed to it. Residents have shown their strong opposition to the scheme in countless opinion polls, in local elections, and now in the GCP’s own consultation, with 58 per cent wanting it dropped.
Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire Anthony Browne Picture: Keith Heppell
“This is a rejection of the congestion charge, plain and simple.
“If the Liberal Democrats and Labour who run the GCP continue to pursue their congestion charge, they are going against the clear will of residents and wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds in public funds to do it. There are alternatives that should be put to the public long before this unwanted tax is ever considered again.”
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for South Cambridgeshire, Pippa Heylings said: “I’m urging our local authorities to hit the pause button and take the time to really think through the changes needed to the scheme. There is clearly widespread support for better buses and active travel, but I’ve also heard local people’s concerns about how the proposals would work in practice.
“A scheme of this kind can only be brought in once local authorities have taken control of bus services and are delivering improvements. Most importantly of all, local authorities need to take the people of Cambridgeshire with them, and we need to build broad support for any scheme to be successful.”
Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, the leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, responded by thanking those who took part in the consultation.
She said: “I want to reassure residents that we will take time to absorb what they have said. We hear their concern and the need for change. The responses are complex, but there are two stand out messages. The support for better public transport is clear, as is the support for a franchised bus service, which ensures that public money spent supporting bus services is publicly accountable and under democratic control.”