Victoria and Orlando Hamilton live and work in west London. They started their florist shop in north Kensington four years ago and have turned what was a boarded-up launderette into a flourishing business.

It’s been touch and go financially at times, and things are about to get much tougher, not just for the Hamiltons but for 19,000 drivers who live in the capital.

Under plans drawn up by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, and the Greater London Authority (GLA), the Hamiltons will be taxed an extra £10,000 a year because of the cars they drive. They don’t own a Hummer or even a stretch limo but a Jeep Cherokee and a small Iveco van.

The congestion charge will rise to £25 a day for drivers of vehicles in road tax band G (with CO2 emissions in excess of 225g/km) and the 90% discount for those who live in the zone will be scrapped for those with band G cars. The charge for other drivers will remain £8. The changes mean the Hamiltons will pay £50 a day for their two vehicles, rather than the £8.80 they pay at present.

“You can’t transport all the flowers we do on a convoy of rickshaws,” says Orlando. “We’ve already had to move our business once because the congestion charge was threatening our original shop near Oxford Street, then Ken went and extended the zone. If he goes ahead with these proposals, we will have to look very carefully at our margins and our bottom lines.

“Some of the small traders, the little greengrocers and artisans in areas like Portobello Road, will be nudged into insolvency.”

When Livingstone introduced the charge in 2003, it was billed as a congestion-busting measure. But five years on, and despite a price rise from £5 to £8 and a western zone extension to include Kensington and Chelsea, the plan has failed. Last year, more than half of the money paid in congestion charges went into the mechanics and bureaucracy of running the scheme.

Traffic speeds in the capital are back to pre-2003 levels, based on Transport for London (TfL) figures, and Livingstone is accused of trying to rescue his experiment by shifting its focus from congestion to carbon emissions. Yet despite the scheme’s shortcomings, the government is encouraging other cities to follow: Durham is looking to extend its congestion charge zone, and charges have been mooted in Manchester, Cambridge, Norwich, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester and Derby.

Livingstone included one possible carrot in his proposals, announced in August last year. Cars in road tax bands A and B – those with emissions up to 120g/km – would be exempt. Currently only cars that run on alternative fuels (some LPG-adapted vehicles, for example), electric cars and hybrids qualify for an exemption.

However, the mayor is now reported to have cooled on this idea because of fears of escalating congestion as people supplemented larger family cars with a smaller vehicle for central-London driving. The proposal for a £25 charge is still on the table. If it goes ahead, TfL could enjoy a £36m revenue boost, according to its own calculations.

TfL claims that making changes to the scheme will encourage “people to take into account the impact of their choice of car on climate change”. But motoring groups argue that punishing a relatively small number of drivers in central London will have little impact on a global problem.

“The problem with penalising drivers in London is that cars inside the M25 already do on average only about two-thirds the mileage of cars outside the capital,” said Luke Bosdet, a spokesman for the AA. “Many band-G cars in London produce fewer emissions than a Ford Fiesta in Basingstoke.”

Bosdet said the £25 charge would affect mainly those with larger, older cars and those with big families. “Some of these families may be asking what they are supposed to do. Drive around in a convoy of smaller vehicles?”

The mayor’s proposals have been through consultation. TfL is preparing a final report, and Livingstone is expected to show his cards by mid-February, according to a spokesman. The mayor’s office was unable to confirm last week when any changes might be implemented, although previous reports have suggested the £25 charge would be introduced in October.

Though he would no doubt deny the allegation, with a mayoral election looming in May, Livingstone could, understandably, be dragging his feet. Boris Johnson, his Conservative-party rival, has been quick to condemn the congestion charge, suggesting a possible review of the west London zone extension, while stopping short of promising to scrap the scheme entirely.

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is understood to be considering court action to stop the new charge. Daniel Moylan, deputy leader of the council, confirmed that the council was taking legal advice. “We’re interested in seeing fair play for our residents,” he says. “Ken Livingstone seems to have dreamt this up as a cheapo political bash at Chelsea tractors.”

While wealthy Chelsea-tractor drivers might be able to afford the new charge, there are many less well-off residents who need their cars for work or family reasons. Nearly three-quarters of small businesses in London oppose plans to raise the charge, according to a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses.

The Food Chain is a charity whose volunteers use their own cars to deliver cooked meals and essential groceries to the homes of people with HIV or Aids. Alan Mather, a trustee of the charity, says they have about 80 drivers with cars big enough to fit a hot and cold food box in the back.

“With the introduction of the congestion charge and the reduction of people with cars, it has made it more difficult to find drivers,” Mather says.

Tony Holt, a Kensington resident and Conservative borough councillor, says the new charge will hurt his area’s poorest residents, such as those living in council housing in the southwest corner and the north of the borough, and those with children or elderly relatives who need a car to get to the doctor or the shops. “Ken Livingstone thinks, wrongly, that everyone who lives in Kensington and Chelsea is a fat cat,” says Holt, who says he will be forced to sell his Volvo V70 estate, which emits 234g/km, if the mayor goes ahead with his plans.

This will be music to the ears of Livingstone, who wants to force people out of their cars. Yet if the mayor thinks the only people he is alienating are a small clique of wealthy socialites and financiers in Belgravia, he may be underestimating the backlash among the people he depends upon for votes.

£6,000 bill

Transport for London, the mayor’s transport body, wants to link the congestion charge to emissions and make drivers of cars in road tax band G –CO2 those with emissions of more than 225g/km – pay £25 a day to enter central London. The higher rate will also apply to pre2001 cars with an engine bigger than 3 litres.

Residents of the charge zone, who now pay only 10% of the daily charge, will lose their discount if they drive a band G car, under the plans, and will face the same bill as nonresidents – about £6,000 a year (if they use their car each working day). The higher charge will hit many types of family car and people carrier, including some versions of the Renault Grand Espace, Audi A6, Volvo V70, VW Passat, Mercedes E-class and Ford Galaxy.

Ken Livingstone is reported to have decided to scrap plans to make cars with C02 emissions of up to 120g/km (road tax bands A and B) exempt from the charge because of the predicted impact on congestion. The proposed changes were announced in August subject to a public consultation period that ended in October. A final decision is due by mid-February, according to the mayor’s office.

Taking a stand

Tom Conti, the 66-year-old veteran of stage and screen, will be hit by a double whammy if the £25 congestion charge is introduced. He regularly drives a Mercedes 500 SEC and a 25-year-old Bentley in the capital – both of which, he says, will be hit by the proposed charge hike.

“Like so many ideas of Mr Livingstone, much like his bendy buses, for example, this £25 charge is preposterous,” says Conti. “It is bullying and robbing people. It is being linked to pollution because the congestion charge isn’t working any more. Ken has to find something else.

“If he got London running properly, that might be okay. But with all the traffic-calming measures that have sprung up – traffic lights, bus lanes – there are constant queues of stationary cars, which is the worst thing possible for pollution. People shouldn’t stand for it but sadly they probably will because they just feel powerless to change anything.”

Conti has been one of the congestion charge’s most outspoken opponents since 2005, when he was forced to pay £1,000 to bailiffs dispatched by Transport for London to seize his car. The incident followed months of wrangling with the London authority.

Conti had tried to pay the charge – then £5 – the day after he had driven through the zone but was told that under the rules (which have since changed), if the charge was not paid before midnight on the day it was incurred, drivers had to pay a £100 fine (reduced to £50 for prompt payment).

Several months and many angry exchanges later, the fine had built up and Conti had to choose between paying £1,000 or having his car towed away. “I drove another vehicle across the gate so they [the bailiffs] couldn’t get my car out, but then they threatened to call the police and have me arrested,” he recalls. “I had appointments that day – I didn’t have time to be arrested – so I paid up.”

Nigel Havers, 58, star of films including A Passage to India and Chariots of Fire, was so incensed by the proposed changes that he tried to get an audience with Ken Livingstone. “Armed with a Biro and paper, I stormed the ramparts of City Hall, but all I got was one of his underlings.”

Havers lives in the congestion zone and drives a Mercedes CLK 500, with CO2 emissions of 270g/km, which means he will be liable for the full £25 charge. “It will be a nightmare. I will have to change cars, simple as that,” he says. , but “I understand the problems of CO2 emissions are not localised, so it makes no sense if I am unable to drive my Mercedes in Kensington and Chelsea but I can still drive it in Liverpool or Los Angeles. It seems to me to be just another revenue-raising exercise.

“I believe that he [Ken Livingstone] is more dangerous to the capital than the great fire of London. When I met his ‘people’, they said that they saw themselves as leaders of the world with this emissions charge and that everyone would follow them.”

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