A number of local congestion-charging schemes have been given a green light to test the scheme before the introduction of a national road toll project (see earlier story - Congestion Charge for Third UK City in knowledgebase). However, the FSB remains unconvinced of the fairness of the scheme and believes that if the Government is sure of its argument then it must win over the public in the chosen local areas before imposing road pricing on them.

Steve Collie, FSB Transport Chairman, said, "These proposed local congestion charging schemes are to be run by local authorities in their clearly-defined areas. Councils already have mechanisms in place to run elections. They should therefore have local referendums to get popular approval for these schemes. Without it road charging is completely illegitimate, as it would be for a national scheme without a public vote on the issue.

"Road taxes raise £45bn per year for the Treasury but only £7bn is reinvested in the roads. Motorists are already being short-changed and more road capacity is needed. If all cars that had out of date tax or MOT certificates were taken off the roads congestion would be drastically reduced. Instead of creating more tolls and more laws the Government should be enforcing current rules and spending more on the transport network.

"Small businesses cannot make deliveries or take heavy tools and equipment on the bus. Nor, given their tight profit margins and heavy competition from larger firms, can they absorb the costs or pass them on to their customers. Small firms employ twelve million people and produce 50% of UK GDP. Road tolls could prove to be a huge knock to the British economy and cost many jobs. The Government needs to re-think its plans before it does irreversible damage to British businesses."

This view was reinforced by the Forum of Private Businesses (FPB). Victoria Carson, the FPB's Campaigns Manager, said that a referendum would be a fair way of deciding the issue: "If a referendum was good enough for Edinburgh, why should it not be good enough for cities such as Manchester and Birmingham?" she said.