Any Plans for Cardiff Congestion Charge Should be Put to a Referendum

Responding to news that Cardiff’s Labour-run council is going ahead with investigating options to bring in a road user payment scheme, the leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Cardiff Council Councillor Rodney Berman, said:

“Any proposal for a significant congestion charging scheme must have support from the people of the City.

“Given that Labour did not include a specific plan for such a scheme in its manifesto for last year’s local elections, we don’t know that a congestion charge scheme would have the required level of public support.

“If the council wants to proceed to introduce one, it should make its case and then put that to a referendum of Cardiff’s residents.

“The council needs to demonstrate that any proposal for a congestion charge, or any other form of road user payment scheme, would bring clear benefits.

“We have long since argued there needs to be major improvements in public transport provision in Cardiff before any charging scheme could be considered. And yet, we have repeatedly seen bus routes withdrawn across the City and the promised benefits of the South Wales Metro scheme still seem a long way off into the future.

“We have also recently seen the loss of the park and ride service to the city centre from Pentwyn, with the bus link having been withdrawn. So currently, we are very much going in the wrong direction.”