Ten new C-charge towns are named

The next major town or city to introduce congestion charging roads will be known by the end of this summer

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London’s congestion charge zone will be joined by another region with road pricing next year

By Steve Lumley

31st January 2007

The Government is proposing that one region outside of London will carry out a major road toll trial - and that could open the pay-as-you-go floodgates for other areas.


	Ten councils have been given a total of around £9million to research the viability of bringing the charge to their areas and report back with their findings

Ten councils have been given a total of around £9million to research the viability of bringing the charge to their areas and report back with their findings. The cash is for drawing up proposals by funding researchers, consultants and traffic specialists. These will pinpoint where charging cameras should go, and how the councils would make the scheme work. They have until July to complete their reports, and it's believed the decision on who will conduct the trial will be announced by the Department for Transport (DfT) three months later.

The Government will put another £200million up to fund the works for the successful city, starting in 2008, and officials are looking at a nationwide congestion charge roll-out from 2010.

A spokesman at the DfT told us: "We need to make sure local populations are behind it and support the proposal to go forward. We envisage that more schemes will exist within a decade." No authority has the power to create a C-charge scheme without permission from the Government.