LONDON (AFP) — London's Mayor Boris Johnson has scrapped proposals by his predecessor to introduce a stinging daily charge for "gas guzzling" vehicles to enter the city centre, he said Tuesday.
His predecessor, Ken Livingstone, pledged to more than triple the daily rate from eight pounds to 25 pounds for high-polluting cars, including sports utility vehicles and sports cars, if he were re-elected.
That led to a legal challenge from luxury car maker Porsche, which claimed that the "disproportionate" tax would hit them unfairly and have a limited effect on cutting carbon emissions.
The Conservative Party's Johnson, who beat Livingstone in a May 1 vote, also opposed the scheme, which would have been introduced in October, and pledged to make fairer the congestion charge road pricing scheme introduced in 2003.
He said that by abandoning the proposal, the capital's transport body Transport for London would save about 10 million pounds in implementation costs.
Porsche had also agreed to donate the legal costs that Transport for London had to pay it for abandoning the case to a young people's charity, he added.
"I am delighted that we have been able to scrap the 25-pound charge, which would have hit families and small businesses hardest," he said in a statement.
"I believe the proposal would actually have made congestion worse by allowing thousands of small cars in for free."
The abandoned plans would have applied to vehicles emitting more than 225 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre, as well as those registered before March 2001 which have engines larger than 3,000 cc.
Vehicles that emit less than 120 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre would have been entitled to a 100 percent discount. Johnson also scrapped this proposal.
Cutting traffic congestion and improving air quality in London were key planks of Livingstone's eight-year tenure as mayor.
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