EDINBURGH in 2005, and plans for a city-wide congestion charging scheme have been routed three-to-one in a referendum.

David Spaven, spokesman for the defeated "Yes" campaign, adds a warning. "In five or 10 years time people will understand how important that issue is and will no doubt wish they had voted another way."

There's no sign of that, at least not yet. The fall-out to Edinburgh's congestion charge debate has been painful, true; but mainly for those who were in favour. Labour was turfed out of power at the elections in May - partly due to the new proportional representation system, perhaps, but also failures like the charge. Senior councillor Bob Cairns bemoaned his administration's penchant for "grandiose projects" as he stood down after 30 years.

Edinburgh served as a warning to any city planning a referendum on the issue of congestion charging. The debate became heated and - according to the losers at least - was more about disinformation and smear tactics than helping voters to make an enlightened choice. Defeat for supporters of the charge has left them with nowhere to turn. The plan won't be coming back, however bad the traffic jams get. "The idea is now dead and buried for Edinburgh," said then council leader Donald Anderson when the referendum result was announced. Since then his party's line has been one of "Don't mention the charge!"

There were clear similarities between Edinburgh's proposals and those that are currently before the people of Greater Manchester. The scheme was based on two rings around the Scottish capital, with dozens of entry cordons.

Motorists would have been charged £2 a day, Monday to Friday. The inner zone would have operated until 6.30pm, the outer one only during the morning rush hour. And the money generated - an estimated £721m over two decades - would have been invested in public transport.

Differences

But there were significant differences, too. The outlying councils opposed congestion charging, claiming their residents would suffer most from the "commuter tax" while getting few of the benefits. Crucially, there was no huge government grant on the table as a reward for going ahead with the scheme. Greater Manchester will only introduce road pricing in return for £1.1bn and the ability to borrow £1.9bn more. That money would be invested in a massive expansion of public transport - the completion of the Metrolink light rail network, hundreds more buses and trains - before the charge was in place. There's also the new "threat" that the government might start imposing a nationwide road charging scheme. Jump now with massive sums of money, the reasoning goes, or risk being pushed later with nothing.

None of these arguments were available to the "Yes" campaigners in Edinburgh. Now, they claim, the city will suffer the consequences of its choice. The Scottish Executive has predicted an increase in traffic of 27 per cent by 2021. Warnings that city centre streets might have to be closed to motorists entirely to meet mandatory emission targets by 2010 - dismissed as propaganda by the "No" campaign - remain a real threat.

"Traffic levels are steadily increasing," says Mark Sydenham, a spokesman for Get Edinburgh Moving and a major voice in the referendum debate. "My journey into work is three and a half miles but some days it can take me an hour.

"Something has to be done but it is no longer clear what."

Mr Sydenham believes that agreeing to hold a referendum left supporters of the charge facing an uphill battle.

"If you ask people to vote to have to pay extra for something they are inclined to vote no," he says. "There was no referendum in London where all the signs were people were dead set against congestion charging. Then as soon as it was introduced it became very popular.

"What we went through was very much a disinformation campaign. It did not help that the local newspaper was very much against it, too. It became hard to get positive stories into the media.

"The `No' campaigners were quite vicious. My favourite story of theirs was when they said the charge would create rat runs in front of every one of our primary schools. What they didn't say was that without the charge, increasing levels of traffic meant something like that was going to happen anyway. At least with the charge there was going to be extra funding to counter it."

Andrew Holmes, director of city development at Edinburgh council, admits congestion remains a "growing problem".

"We are working on a number of projects to tackle this, such as reintroducing trams, expanding the existing park and ride schemes and further developing bus priority lanes," he says.

From a Manchester perspective, Edinburgh's proposed tram system is a political curiosity. Its very existence was opposed by the SNP - now in charge of Scotland's Parliament - until they were outvoted on the matter by the combined opposition. Now they are prepared to let it go ahead - but will not be providing extra money in the event of an overspend. Work is now underway on a first line, running to the city airport. Remaining phases remain on the backburner.

The SNP, who campaigned against the Edinburgh congestion charge, remain convinced the referendum produced the right result.

"We are not in favour of congestion charging," says a spokesman. "We do not believe it is the right approach, as many families do not have adequate access to alternative public transport.

"Instead we will invest in our transport infrastructure - roads and public transport - to support sustainable growth and improve the travel experience for passengers across Scotland."

The question, of course, is where the money is going to come from.

Other cities, perhaps mindful of Edinburgh's bruising experience, have taken a different approach. In Stockholm, city bosses trialled a "congestion tax" between January and July last year. The charge, of up to £4.50 a day, varied according to the time the motorist entered the city-centre zone. It did not apply after 6.30pm or at weekends. Traffic fell by up to 25 per cent, exceeding predictions.

Referendum

A referendum on the issue was held - but only after the trial had taken place. Residents living outside the city centre said no, but those in the city centre said yes. That was good enough for the government. The charge will now be introduced permanently, from the start of next month.

Dublin, on the other hand, has ruled out congestion charging until at least 2015. Instead it is trying to build its way out of looming gridlock through Transport21, a £23bn public transport investment project.

The issue has been subject to fierce debate since 2000, when a report from the Dublin transport office promoted the need for road pricing and said any strategy based purely on providing extra public transport "will not succeed". And Owen Keegan, the capital's director of traffic, said in 2005 that he believed a congestion charge was "inevitable", and should be brought in "sooner rather than later".

The Irish government has indicted it will look at charging, but only when Transport21 is complete in eight years' time. Whether that position remains feasible is another matter. A major survey by the Irish Property & Facility Management Association, published last month, said Dublin remained highly competitive. But it warned: "There is increasing concern regarding the city's ability to cope with future growth and the impact that congestion and inadequate infrastructure could have on the attractiveness of Dublin as a business location."

In cities across the world, road pricing is now firmly on the agenda. And not just as a way of raising money, but as a way of making sure local economies don't suffer the negative impact of traffic jams.

Perhaps most notably, New York has drawn up plans for a London-style charge, with cars paying around £4 a day to enter the "red zone", and trucks just over £10. The reward? Well, the federal government has set aside £600m for congestion-busting schemes, and New York wants £300m. Sound familiar? And this in one of the most car-friendly, tax-unfriendly countries in the world.

Oslo, Rome, Barcelona, Singapore, are among the world's major cities to have introduced charging schemes already. Manchester, of course, is not Rome, or Barcelona, or Singapore. Still less is it London or New York. It doesn't have the same levels of public transport. It doesn't have the same levels of congestion. The debate here will be different to the debates there, and rightly so. But it's a debate we were always going to have to have, sooner or later.

Let us know what you think of the congestion charge proposal by submitting your coments below.

Read the background to this issue via the links to the right of this page.

Watch Channel M tonight for coverage of the event at Manchester's Urbis which we will bring you on this website on Wednesday.