GOING WEST – - London Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Agius Scooters said of the charge in general: “it has helped us as a businessbecause our product, scooters, don’t pay the charge.”The reduction in congestion is supposed to have a beneficial impact on business but,as was highlighted earlier, businesses in the current zone have seen few benefits.Some 90 per cent of company directors felt there would be no beneficial change totrading through the reduction of congestion. The chief executive of one departmentstore felt that the possibility of any improvement to business was illogical: “unless weassumed all of our customers were coming from within the area”. There are alsoconsiderable fears that the extension of the charge will increase congestion throughthe large number of residents who will gain the discount to be able to drive intocentral London and also through shifting congestion to other areas. The manager ofa manufacturing company in the WEZ said: “we feel it [the extension of the charge]will make matters worse as drivers will try to avoid the zone, causing problems onroutes immediately outside the zone.”It should be noted that GLA Economics and TfL themselves have produced much ofthe data indicating the negative impact congestion charging has upon business. TheLondon Retail Consortium (LRC) have pointed to this fact and further shown thedanger to businesses in the WEZ: “GLA Economics have identified that 48 per centof those who use their cars to travel to the Western Extension would change theirshopping habits. This would account for about a 4 per cent drop in sales, which couldimpact profits by 8 per cent in the extension, dwarfing any economic benefit thatreduced congestion might deliver.” 17 Peter Willasey, corporate communicationsdirector at Harrods, explained how any potential gains through reduced journey timeswould be dwarfed by the loss of customers: “Harrods sits on a major thoroughfare,the A4. It is inevitable that there will be less traffic passing our store so it will beeasier for vehicles to get through but any incentive gained will be lost by the fact thatpeople will be put off using the roads because of the expense of the charge andparking.”Impacting employmentA representative from a major high-street retail chain claimed that the charge was afurther step towards driving business out of the urban centre, stating that: “We will gowhere public policy drives us; there will be a movement of investment andemployment away from the traditional centre.” This raises the possibility that theextension of the charge will not only have a negative impact on sales and profits, butthat it could discourage fresh investment and even drive out some existingbusinesses from the area altogether. The partner of one retailing and manufacturingcompany put the matter succinctly when she stated that: “This will kill another area inLondon.”The CEBR have made estimates on the economic impact of the charge in the WEZ.The figures used are taken from GLA Economics statistics but based upon the reinterpretationof the terms used by GLA Economics and TfL where they haveassociated the terms ‘neutral’ and ‘marginal’ with the figures they have gleaned oneconomic impact. The CEBR have taken these ‘marginal’ figures and translated themback into absolute figures and percentages. The results are predicted to beconservative because of the level of estimation involved yet the conclusions are quiteshocking. Their calculations put the figure at a loss of £236 million in output to localbusinesses with a loss of almost £100 million to the area’s retailers and the samefigure in losses to hoteliers and restaurateurs. Further interpretation of TfL data has17