THE cost of dying in London is being forced up by the congestion charge, according to undertakers. Funeral directors are adding their voice to the protest against the £8 congestion charge, saying that it is “killing off business” as mourners are forced to pay up if their procession crosses into Central London.

They are the latest to challenge the charge and plan to demonstrate their grievance with a procession, complete with hearse and New Orleans jazz band, through the area earmarked for the zone’s extension.

Alan Smith, president of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors (SAIF) and proprietor of Alfred Smith Funeral Directors, said: “As well as killing off business in Central London, the congestion charge is a tax on death. It’s costing mourners a fortune having to pay the £8 congestion charge every time they enter the zone to visit our chapel of rest, and when a funeral enters the zone the tax is imposed on every vehicle in the cortège.”

The funeral companies believe that their vehicles should join those which are exempt from the charge.

Disabled people, residents in the zone, drivers of alternative fuel and electronically charged vehicles, vehicles with nine or more seats and drivers of roadside recovery vehicles do not have to pay the full charge.

The protest will be held in Gloucester Road, Kensington, which will be part of the congestion zone when it is extended westward from February 2007.

It is being supported by other companies, who say that their businesses have also been crippled by the scheme. They are calling for a suspension of the charge from now until the end of January to help trade over the lucrative Christmas period.

A spokesman for the Forum of Private Businesses (FPB), which is helping to organise the protest, said that companies think that Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, “cannot continue to ignore the evidence that people’s jobs and livelihoods are on the line”.

At Christmas the charge will be waived on the three working days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. The charge, which went up from £5 to £8 in July, is not payable on weekends or bank holidays.

Nick Goulding, chief executive of the FPB, which represents about 25,000 businesses, said: “It was an outstandingly bad mistake to allow the congestion charge increase to go ahead in the wake of the July bombings. Business desperately needs the mayor’s help.”

Seven out of ten businesses say that putting up the congestion charge has hurt trade, and a third say that they have considered moving their business away from the capital as a result, according to research released last week by the FPB.

A spokesman for the London Assembly Conservatives said: “Small businesses lie at the heart of our great city. We all rely on them. Their independent character adds vibrant colour, character and choice. Yet we have a mayor hell-bent on killing them off.”

A spokesman for Transport for London said that it was other factors which had had a negative effect on businesses. He said: “There are a range of factors impacting on businesses, not least the state of the economy and consumers’ willingness to spend.”