The fact of the matter is the charge should be just for the centre of manchester not 10 miles out. Also would this mean public transport would be cheaper. No they wouldn't do that. I hate everything about this country. Will be getin taxed to go to the toilet next.

I am absolutely opposed to this - yesterday it was initially the city centre, then by midday it included routes into the city centre and now this morning there is talk of including local motorways in the scheme - where will it all end? Will motorcycles be exempt (as they are in London)? Will smaller, more fuel-efficient cars attract reductions or be exempt also? We need a lot more information on this hare-brained scheme NOW - if the proponents of tolls in Manchester have nothing to hide let them show their cards to the public instead of keeping it hush-hush in the corridors of power!

Great idea - if Manchester wants to lose its place as Britain's second city! Does the council really think that this will attract any more new businesses to Manchester? It only works in London because they have the tube, we don't!

I am currently a commuter to Manchester and unfortunate to use the tram system from Bury and have done for two years. I have given it more than enough to try and rectify the abismal appauling service they give. As they are not geared to a timetable only a frequency of 6 minutes in peak, then they do not think it is worthy of an announcement unless asked after 24 minutes if they are running late or there is a problem.

It is almost twice the cost of my colleagues who live much further away who use the train system.

Then also on numerous journeys the ticket inspectors hold up the train for a long time, whilst 5-6 of them stand around talking when they could be on the tram helping check tickets.

The trams are dirty and full of grafitti .

Whoever designed them to have the driver have to walk thru the tram squeezing past passengers to change is a joke. That is if the driver is at the tramstop- because there has been owhen they have not been there to swap over.

Then to start charging people to come into town is disgusting. They need to sort out the public transport first ie the appauling tram system then people may be encourage to use it.

Due to the awful service they offer and my continuing to be late for work I am not willing to pay nearly ¿¿900 for this service and would rather start driving in which I intend to do when my annual ticket runs out next week.

I drive me and my partner to work everyday so in a way I car share as we both work with 5 minutes of each other in the city centre. I would cost us twice as much to use the metrolink and add 30% to our travel time, so in terms of social and ecomonical costs its cheaper and easier for me to use my car, what is proposed is a chicken and egg situation, they need to charge for road use to fund improvements in public transport but without improvement in public transport you wont reduce congestion. Lets not mention all the silly road schemes that have been introduced of the past 10 years, lane reduction, bus lanes, silly one ways, reducing speeds on bypasses, turning 2 lane carriageways into one lane and a cycle lane. All this charge will do is tax the poor off the road, out of city centre jobs, reduce the number of shoppers comming into the city, overall economic harm.

Came in on the train/tram today - £7 return for just over 30 miles - 10 mins late, had to stand on the tram. This policy penalises you if you drive, and penalises you if you use public transport due to the highest cost per mile in Europe. Why do we have to lose out each way - cheaper, better public transport would make for an easier commute and at less expense - paid for by savings this government could easily find if it wasn't so wasteful -over £bn on the war springs instantly to mind.

As a cyclist and user of public transport,I am in favour of congestion charges. I regularly have to fight for my life on Manchester's overcrowded roads. At rush hours when the volume of cars increases the safety of most people's driving deteriorates as their tempers rise in the congestion.
Congestion charging together with more investment in public transport, lowering of the fares (especially busses) and an increase in facilities for safer cycling and pedestrian facilities would make Manchester a better place to live in.
Just about every major city in Europe has better and cheaper public transport than cities in UK with less car traffic - it's about time we woke up to this and followed.

Surely, this crackpot scheme will have to have the agreement of the other councils ion the Greater Manchester area ? They have spread the area out as wide as possible to grasp as much money as possible. If they had to do this, it should be the City Centre only, just like London and not spread inot the outer areas. Manchester people are not mugs and they will defy this plan. Remember the poll tax riots - people power won through in the end and let's face it, there's no prison places left !

What happens to all the side roads off the main corridor routes? The problem here is that these side streets and sub-routes will become clogged with traffic, turning once quiet streets into car parks during rush hour.

Have these peoplre really thought through the repercussions?

If it costs someone sixty pounds a week (five days at 12 pound a day) more to goto work in Manchester than in another SMALL city it means that the employer will have to pay over ninety pound extra before tax and insurance just to be where they are now. I can see businesses queueing up - To LEAVE! Someone working for six quid an hour will work the first two hours to pay the TAX
I hope that the councilors fight on road pricing in the local elections - just to see how many get elected

Increase car parking charges, throughout the city center and let the council take a cut of the revenue. This will deter people from driving in, and the ¿¿40 million can go towards improving transport. Everyone who drives into the city center has to park somewhere.
I tried using the trains to commute (6 miles from town) and they are unreliable, overcrowded and grim.

Surely imposing such a tax on a selective part of the country should demand a referendum. Whewre the h*ll is all our taxpayer's money going? Into the London Olympic white elephant. The average burden of tax under this government has increased hugely and yet we only get a token bit of investment in GM transport infrastructure!
I'm far from being a Tory but there is a real irony that the major investment in Labour controlled G Mcr came under the previous administration

stop moaning,pay it,shut up wining,the world owes you all nothing,

The only real congestion is in the artirial roads coming in to the city centre not in the city centre itself

I keep listening to councillors and others saying that people who travel'off peak' will not be affected.
Can someone please tell me if shops and offices in Manchester will now be changing their opening hours to Off peak so that their workers will not have to pay what amounts to a further tax on their jobs and which when added to the cost of parking means it won't be worth going to work in the first place.
Will being priced out of a job make an acceptable reason to be able to claim unemployment benefit?
Also please note -yes there is a metro service in the centre of Sale which means that if I don't use a car then I and others like me have to get a bus into Sale first only then to be herded onto an expensive overcrowded tram- so where is the benefit in that?Not everyone lives in Manchester City Centre !!

Reading through the comments on this issue highlights why our planet is on the verge.Too many people are addicted to petrol, and cars.I am convinced that people would rather avoid inconvenience than help the wheezing,bucolic city they live in.Yes the poorest may not be able to drive as much as the wealthy,maybe people won't be able to fly as much,but it's a tiny price to pay,if it means a healthier place for all,let the rich get on with it...who cares.CO2 emmisions are choking us all,and contributing to global warming,our cities are choked with cars and exhaust fumes.The answer is to break the gridlock,the only way to do this is by the vast majority of commuters using public transport...it would help if it was cheap,efficient and subsidised too.Anyone who uses their car when they could reasonably walk or catch a bus is guilty of this selfishness,and is dragging the rest of us down too.It's your choice...my guess is that when the polar ice caps are melting,and Britain is dissapearing under water,that most people will still be moaning about bus lanes and congestion charges.

If i come to town on my skateboard would i be liable to pay this charge!!
This is another ridiculous charge introduced by the city. If they wish manchester to become a ghost town this is the right way to do it. People would no longer come to town for christmas markets, shopping in the sales as by the time you pay the congestion charge and parking which is already excessive it wont be worth it.
You can bet the councillors who thought about this great idea wont be paying the charge, they will just charge it to expenses!!. I live 5 miles from the centre, but actually work in Bolton so although i wont actually be driving into town i bet i will still be charged something for going the opposite direction....
SHAME ON YOU MANCHESTER COUNCIL. I Used to think you did a good job most of the time, now I know you dont

This isnt a congestion charge - its highway robbery! Our political masters have allowed our trains, trams and buses to be taken over by private companies who care only about making profits by providing a minimum service. They waste no time in constantly raising prices and are clearly not fit for purpose now due to overcrowding. So how are they suddenly going to become better and CHEAPER?? And now our wonderful council are going to charge you just for driving down a road many miles outside of Manchester Town Centre to "alleviate" congestion? RUBBISH! Its all to make private motorists foot the bill for the Metrolink Expansion. This scheme is unfair, discriminatory and perverse - and as usual our friends in the Town Hall are spinning a line. Something like the London scheme would be realistic but this current plan is just total madness!

All in favour, with one provisor.

The improved public transport must be in place in advance of the charge being introduced

So happy I dont live there any more! Crime rates, house prices, weather and now the Congestion Charge. I left the UK and Manchester and never looked back. You voted them in, you should vote them out. Blame yourselves for installing fools. Get out whilst you can. Ha.

I am a highly qualified freelance contractor who worls for household name firms. I have no problem getting work in Leeds, Liverpool, Chester, York, Nottingham, Birmingham, etc but never in Manchester. Major companies won't come here because of poor roads and public transport. Why don't the council just build barricades round the city centre and have done with it.

What are these people drumming up ? lets not get to big for our boots, this isn't London and the roads aren't that bad, a congestion charge on the inside of the inner ring road then maybe one day but the major roads into manchester is the stupid'est idea I have ever heard !. Rush hours in any major city in the world are always going to be busy just face it. They really have no idea what something like this would do to affect greater manchesters people's everyday life. Many of the roads are used to travel too and from schools, places of work, and even recreation in the greater manchester area, do they not understand that these actions dont just cut congestion they impact on everyones day to day life by adding journey times to and from work, adding cost of living expenses to a house hold, its a joke how the public would be expectd to afford this suggestion and live a comfortable life, employers wouldn't support such a charge in salarys, I guess its the same people who invent these bus and cycle lanes every hundred yards, they really dont get out enough onto the roads to see they dont work, when will they wake up and do something productive ?

Looking at the area the congestion charge is being proposed for, I am shocked that it covers such an expansive area. I was expecting the zone would be circled by the M60, with the M60 being the last "free" road before the city centre. But the fact that the zone include the airport, Rochdale, Wigan and Oldham, it means that the entire of the Greater Manchester area will be effected. Another aspect that the planners need to take into account is the direction of the congestion, quiet often one side of a road will be congested, whilst the other is free flowing.
I'm not completly against road charging, but I think from what I have seen so far about Manchesters' proposal, it's a ill planned local road tax, that will effect rich and poor a like, but like any flat tax, it will be those with less money who will be hit the hardest. Which means that driving in Manchester is more likely to become luxury, rather than a necesitty.
In London, where the charge is already in place criminals clone number plates, to avoid the charge. I would expect this crime would become a problem in Manchester too. Which could lead to thousands of people being incorrectly charged. As with all systems, it will fall down where something has been assumed as a fact, i.e. everyone has a legal number plate.

Well done for voting Labour everyone. Another superb idea from this party. Now we all suffer because of your stupidity. No wonder us Northerners always whinge - what do you expect?

I live smack bang in the middle of the proposed congestion charge area. Does this mean I have to pay a charge every single time I venture out to go about my daily business. I have a disabled 16 year old son whom it would be impossible to take onto public transport. Should he be made a prisoner in his own home! I have 2 teenage girls - should they be put at risk standing at unlit or unpoliced bus stops or metrolink stations? What's going on!!