This cartel of Politicians know their Constituents are ready to vote them out next time round,so they are trying to cling onto votes by saying its in the Constituents interests to have a NO VOTE,its their backsides they are looking after not YOURS..

Heroes!!!

Well done for standing up...just a shame you lot couldnt find your voices,both here and in Westminster months ago... or for some of you,even at the Labour Party butt-kissing Conference.Hopefully it will add more publicity and momentum to the No Campaign,but as for ensuring your Political futures...we the Electorate,will deal with that one later.

Brilliant, every one of them.

I only hope the electorate consign those elected representatives who back this crazy charge to the scrapheap at the next election.

This CONgestion charge has nothing to do with congestion and is simply another tax on the motorist.

Heaven forbid this does get through on Dec 11th, but if it does, the people of Manchester will probably condemn the rest of the country to national road pricing.

Lets hope they get £3m quid, a disgracefully biased newspaper and 12months to lie to the general public to get their point across. Somehow I doubt it but at least they have some weight between their legs.

Where is my MP David Chaytor. ??? Does any know his view?, does he know his view?

Did we not read in a national newspaper just the other week that if the vote is a resounding 'NO' this government will push the Con Charge through anyway...that's NuLabour's democracy for you, on their terms and subject to their approval.
Any councillor that supports this Con Charge scam will be voted out of office next time they are up for election....too many of them have sat on comfortable council seats for too long...time for change.

Chaytor is in hiding with Ivan Lewis. Too scared to say yes in public and too scared to say no. Sitting on the fence.

Amazing how this story has disappeared of the news page of this website.

Peter, Telford.

As you rightly say there is a bigger picture here.

New Labour is pulling the strings and has financed the yes lobby via other public bodies. They are determined to get their yes vote by hook or by crook. For months now the people of Greater Manchester have been fed a very biased one sided view.

The pro-charge lobby have wasted no expense at all giving us poster and newspaper spreads. These have suggested that just 10% of motorists will pay the con-charge. Yet they conveniently forget the majority of this group are on poor pay and yet another stealth tax of £1250 per year will cripple them. People will get out of their cars and those proposing the con charge will have serious accounting problems paying back the loans.

I agree with you that if the government gets this through on Dec 11th they will use it to force national road pricing on the rest of England. However in the Greater Manchester area 2/3rd of households have access to at least one vehicle. These people are very suspicious of this government’s motives and the fact they will not allow a balanced democratic debate.

Also of note is the BBC NWT congestion charge survey. The Greater Manchester area relies on workers and visitors from the region and beyond. People come for the restaurants, the shows, specialised administrative services and much more. On the BBC’s survey postcode by postcode people in the region were showing that they would work and shop elsewhere. This could do serious damage to Manchester.

But sadly by the lack of a healthy two sided democratic debate factors like this are not being explored and the questions answered. The simple fact is without visitors many retailers and others may look to leave and take the jobs them.

Surely, we the public, have a right to know who is paying for the yes campaigns publicity ads. Everywhere you look we are being bombarded and brainwashed into thinking TIF is the way to go, which I most definitely disagree with. I have been advised this is being paid out of the public purse, ie, you and me the already heavily taxed taxpayer. Can we apply to any governing body under the freedom of information act to find out how one-sided this campaign really is. Vote NO to the Congestion Charge

Buzza2008: "These have suggested that just 10% of motorists will pay the con-charge. Yet they conveniently forget the majority of this group are on poor pay and yet another stealth tax of £1250 per year will cripple them."

Nonsense. You're suggesting that the people that pay - those commuting in the morning from outside the M60 to Manchester city centre in a car in the peak hours are the worst paid? That's just not logical is it?

Parkie161: "Surely, we the public, have a right to know who is paying for the yes campaigns publicity ads."

You do have a right to know, it was announced some time ago they are funded with donations from businesses who stand to gain from a reduction in congestion. Not tax payers money.

Monkey Boy, there will be no reduction in traffic caused by the con-charge and the FACTS prove that, you however just keep mouthing off about it in the hope someone believes you. Without the con charge car use is falling = FACT. If car use did fall the £1.2bn loan could not be paid back so we enter into the idea that the PT users pay it back or council tax is increased to pay it back.

Rammylad: "Monkey Boy, there will be no reduction in traffic caused by the con-charge and the FACTS prove that, you however just keep mouthing off about it in the hope someone believes you. Without the con charge car use is falling = FACT. If car use did fall the £1.2bn loan could not be paid back so we enter into the idea that the PT users pay it back or council tax is increased to pay it back."

I'm not entirely sure your maths is too good, Rammylad. I think your failure to understand that some traffic is not no traffic is getting in the way of your understanding of the proposals.

Forecasts have been carried out that predict how many people will be charged after the charge is introduced - these forecasts have less traffic, but it is not no traffic. These forecasts predict the loan can be paid back.

And there is evidence from every congestion charging scheme across the world that there is a reduction in traffic (not no traffic, Rammy!), so I'm not entirely sure why you don't think there will be in Manchester.

Munkey Boy,

You have to go back to the mid 1980’s to understand what is happening today. Public Transport outside of London was deregulated and privatised. Before this Greater Manchester had one of the best and most comprehensive bus services (SELNEC) in England. After privatisation services deteriorated and people had no choice but to purchase cars. Car ownership today is no longer about luxury it is about necessity. Mobility is essential for many people to stay in employment and to keep their shopping and living costs low.

I don’t know how old you are but I would guess from your stance you are young and have not experienced working life in the 1980’s. This was a time when much of our manufacturing base was rapidly disappearing. Many companies were downsizing and centralising often to greenfield sites on the outskirts of towns and cities. This was a time when the only new jobs were in the service sectors. Don’t take my word for it you will find retail/business parks everywhere and often with very large car parks.

I am afraid that you are the one talking nonsense if you really think that a congestion charge will solve transport problems in Manchester or any other of England’s cities.
This is not about congestion this is about government looking for more of yours and my money. This government like those before it have had adequate annual funds from the motorists to have invested in modern transport facilities. How much have they just found to bail out the banking sector, how much of they spent prosecuting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead they have to stoop to blackmailing cities into congestion charging just to get investment.

As for low paid jobs, just check out what is on offer in the city centre and the proposed congestion charging zones at the present time. There are plenty of jobs offering £12K to 16K per year. The best is still 33% short of the so call national average of £24K. If you can do you maths a working motorist taking home around £12K per year would lose another 10% of their income. For many households this will be too much and the people you are expecting to pay the charge are going to be forced out of their cars.

Buzza 2008: "Public Transport outside of London was deregulated and privatised. Before this Greater Manchester had one of the best and most comprehensive bus services (SELNEC) in England. After privatisation services deteriorated and people had no choice but to purchase cars."

You must have lived in a different Greater Manchester to me, because the bus system prior to deregulation that I remember was poor to say the least. It was only with deregulation that the system became responsive to passenger demand, with companies like Bee Line stepping in to provide the services that the public sector had never bothered to.

Incidentally, London was one of the first areas to privatise its bus network.

Thanks for your reply, Buzza, even if I disagree with your opinions I'm glad at last there is room for intelligent debate rather than mistruths and knee-jerk reaction.

To respond to your points, I would first say that I find it hard to believe that anyone on a wage of 12-16K in Manchester city centre wouldn't benefit massively from an improved public transport system. I doubt very much if anyone in Greater Manchester would have a hard time getting to Manchester city centre by public transport, and therefore I would argue that it's exactly those people on low incomes that stand to gain the most from the proposal.

Planning during the 1980s was short-termist and very bias toward the private car. The predict and provide approach of planners of the day (to forecast where traffic demand would take place and then build roads to accomodate it) has left us with the legacy we have today of shopping centres at motorway junctions instead of accessible town centres, which have been hit hardest of all.

The idea that transport should be able to accomodate our desire for longer and more obscure trips to more inaccessible places is short-termist, inefficient and exclusive to the few rather than the needs of the many. We need to manage demand rather than provide for it - this is now a consensus in the transport planning field.

We need to plan better to create vibrant town centres again, ones which can open early, stay open late, be accessed by all, be welcoming with low crime and not have to rely solely on the car too get there.

I'm not the biggest fan our central government spending on bullets and inefficiency, but I do believe for the first time they have it spot on when linking massive transport investment to managing demand, rather than providing for it and to hell with the consequence.

Munkey Boy wrote:
"And there is evidence from every congestion charging scheme across the world that there is a reduction in traffic (not no traffic, Rammy!), so I'm not entirely sure why you don't think there will be in Manchester. "

Munkey, do not confuse reduction in traffic with congestion.
Three thousand cars LESS now enter central Manchester in the 7am to 9.30 time frame (than did in 1999). Which as a percentage is over 14% - has congestion got better or worse?

Black Flag wrote

"You must have lived in a different Greater Manchester to me, because the bus system prior to deregulation that I remember was poor to say the least. It was only with deregulation that the system became responsive to passenger demand,"

My recollections are diametrically opposite. I remember going to a 181/182/24 bus stop on Broadway in Chadderton at the appointed time and a bus used to arrive. Now I wait ages. The truth is that they DO respond to passenger demand - by taking buses off low demand routes/timetables.

Of course the glory dats were the 1950s. We used to travel from NE Manchester to grandma's in Salford 6 with complete ease and a very reasonable cost.

Bean B4, I think you are suffering from the traditional rose tinted nostalgia.

There was a letter in the Evening News a few weeks ago by a reader who had gone through the copies of letters pages from the era of public ownership and found complaints about the buses then which were at least as severe as the ones today.

The fact that companies like Bee Line were able to come along and set up new routes that were well used shows that the public sector wasn't responding to demand.

That lack of responsiveness from the public sector is exactly what you'd expect; they didn't have to worry about making a loss, because they could get the taxpayer to pick up the tab and they did't have to worry about competition, because they outlawed it.

In many respects, losing passengers was a good thing for the public sector, because it meant there were fewer people to complain about the service, so they did little to stop passengers drifting to the car. That's probably why, for example, in London, annual bus journeys dropped from 3.5 billion in 1950 to 1 billion in 1980, all during the supposed golden age of public ownership.

Reginald - since 1999 there has been a new road opened enabling more people to re-route around Manchester city centre: the inner ring road (Mancunian Way etc), which was completed in 2004. A reduction of this order to the centre may well be attributable to such a road, just as A road traffic dropped locally when the M60 was completed.

It does not indicate less traffic on our roads generally: the only thing that does this is vehicle kilometers, and that's gone up by 12% since 1999.

Make no mistake, people are making more car trips of longer distances, there's no way around that fact.

Black Flag no disrespect but I would disagree with you on many aspects. I remember the bus service being more passengers focused and providing a more comprehensive service.

After deregulation the buses got so bad that out of frustration many people chose car ownership. The stats prove this trend has continued certainly to the present time. I should imagine that after the rises in fuel costs over the summer if the trend may start to change. I know I use the bus more than I use to. The only trouble is the journey takes a lot longer than a car journey. At the end of the day my time is valuable to me.

Also prior to de-regulation SELNEC always ran a modern up to date bus fleet. This has only really been replicated in recent years. Prior to this they made do with fleets of older buses. I remember at one point the bus companies get a dressing down for the condition and the state of their vehicles. One company you could not see through their windows due to the grime.

Also you mention that the services became more responsive. I would disagree because for a long period the bus companies were virtually cutting each others throats openly competing for routes. I remember no less than 4 different companies running the 82 Oldham to Manchester route and times it was total mayhem as they raced each other to the bus stops. It was also at this time other less profitable routes were neglected. This is probably why we ended up with GMPTA subsidising routes.

Personally I feel that to make improvements all aspects of transport need some form of regulation or planning.

We won’t agree on a great deal but it nice to give and read others opinions.

Buzza:2008: "After deregulation the buses got so bad that out of frustration many people chose car ownership"

As per the figures I gave in my last post, people were already do that in droves when the buses were in public ownership. The decline slowed with privatisation.

"Also you mention that the services became more responsive. I would disagree because for a long period the bus companies were virtually cutting each others throats openly competing for routes."

So, the bus companies saw demand, they competed to satisfy that demand and as far as you are concerned, that is a sign of the system not being responsive? You'll have to explain that to me.

"Personally I feel that to make improvements all aspects of transport need some form of regulation or planning."

Improvements can be achieved through road pricing alone. As you quite rightly said, increases in fuel costs increase bus use. If we were to increase fuel duty by a substantial amount, everything else would take care of itself. We don't need the bully boy tactics of the government telling us when we may or may not travel by bus.

I don't think there's evidence to back your claim that privatisation slowed patronage loss on the buses, Black Flag. In fact, quite the opposite.

Plus, why has bus patronage increased in London while the rest of the country dropped? Just a massive coincidence that it's the last area under public control?

Sorry Black Flag but you are suffering from acute over generalisation. In the area where I live (border Oldham Manchester) the bus service was better years ago. That is a fact. I don't care about statistics and someone who looked through old letters to the editor. My own personal experience is that the currewnt bus service is rubbish, expense, unreliable and to be avoided if at all possible.

We used to have enviromentally clean trolley busses runing from ashton to manchester in the 1950s etc and they used to shunt thousands of workers back and foreward quite well.Whatever happened to those busses? no doubt politicians getting involved to make the private companies money.....Get the transport system back in public ownership and stop making investers millions each year.

Munkey Boy I would not disagree with some of the points you have raised.

To take the debate further we need to understand what the car has done. For most people it has opened up a new world of personal freedom. It has made it easy to drive to the coast go on holiday in the UK or even abroad visit other cities or the local retail centres. The whole economy has been geared up to personal mobility. Perhaps you are correct that this direction was rather short-termed.

You suggest that people on £12K-£16K would benefit greatly from the transport improvements. Fine but I think that this will not be done by personal choice but under duress and as a result of the congestion charge. Sadly it will get people backs up and with 2 out of 3 households in Greater Manchester having access to at least one vehicle there is the potential of a political backlash. That is why the government tries to keep out of the issue despite its desire for further schemes. Again if the car ends up sitting on the driveway or outside the house many people may decide to sell their cars. The government may reduce car ownership but could also undermine one of its own principle areas of revenue.

I like what you say about managing demand rather than providing for it but alas if it was only that simple. Just look at London look at the money that is being spent on the capital. Mega budgets for infrastructure in London and the cheques have already been pre-signed and if they go over budget no problem. Yet Manchester needs just £3 Billion and hey presto a small number of people are expected to pay the bill.