Congestion charge: Ocado leads push against ‘money making’ levy

More than 40 UK businesses, including Ocado, the AA, and Openreach, have urged Sadiq Khan to scrap plans to extend the £15 daily congestion charge to electric vans.

The businesses argue that this hugely unpopular congestion charge if continued, would severely impact those who have invested in greener fleets.

Under Transport for London (TfL)’s current proposal, electric vehicle drivers will lose their £10 yearly exemption from the congestion charge from Christmas 2025.

This will force them to pay the same rate as petrol and diesel vehicles.

TfL considers this change part of a phased effort to tackle air pollution, yet businesses argue it will hinder the already slow uptake of electric vans.

Currently, fewer than three per cent of London’s vans are electric, and just 5.9 per cent of new vans sold last year were battery-powered.

The companies argue that removing the exemption will impose significant costs of up to £5,500 per vehicle annually, hurting businesses that invested in cleaner technology based on existing incentives.

This is also partly because such businesses have bought electric vans, which are far more expensive than their diesel counterparts, as an investment towards their net zero goals.

The Federation of Small Businesses and environmental group Clean Cities have backed the companies’ call to reverse the decision, warning it could deter the transition to electric vehicles at a time when the market is already struggling to meet targets.

Thomas Turrell, City Hall Conservatives group environment spokesman, told City AM: “Charges on delivery vehicles are almost always passed onto consumers, and so introducing a congestion charge on electric vans will see Londoners shoulder the cost.”

“At a time when we want to incentivise companies to swap to cleaner transport options”, he continued, this move “suggests that the congestion charge is more about being a money-making scheme for the Mayoralty rather than a tool of changing behaviour”.

Business owners who have signed this petition hope that the Mayor will realise the problematic nature of this confusing, or in Turrell’s words, “counter intuitive” idea.