CITIES across Britain are shelving plans to introduce congestion charging after Edinburgh voted overwhelmingly against a £2 daily toll.

The Scottish capital’s Labour-controlled authority suffered a humiliating defeat in Britain’s first referendum on congestion charging. Almost three quarters of voters

(74.4 per cent) rejected the toll on a high turnout of 62 per cent. The result is a severe blow to the Government’s plans to tackle urban congestion through tolls.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary and an Edinburgh MP, had supported the council’s proposal. He said that the Government now had no chance of hitting its target of having charging schemes in 20 towns and cities by 2010.

Bristol, York, Leeds, Southampton, Manchester and Cardiff had all been awaiting the outcome of the Edinburgh referendum before deciding whether to press ahead with their schemes. The English cities were all eager yesterday to play down their previous interest in charging and some denied that they had seriously contemplated the idea.

Only Cardiff said that it was still considering tolls, though it added that they would not be imposed before 2008 and then only if there had been “very significant improvements to public transport”.

Nottingham has rejected congestion charging but is considering a £180 annual tax on each workplace parking space from the autumn of 2007.

David Begg, the chairman of the Government’s Commission for Integrated Transport and a leading proponent of congestion charging, said: “Congestion is going to rise fast in British cities and it is disappointing that the public are unwilling to accept the measures which will deal with it.”

He said that the result exposed the shortcomings of allowing policy to be determined by a referendum. “If there had been a referendum on the breath test for drink-drivers in 1966 it never would have been introduced.”

Professor Begg said that it might have been better to copy Stockholm, which is planning to operate congestion charging for a year before holding a referendum.

Donald Anderson, the leader of Edinburgh council, said: “The idea is now dead and buried for Edinburgh. It would have been much better if we could have held a referendum after we had the scheme up and running.”

Ann Reid, the executive member for transport at York council, said that it would be doing no further work on congestion charging despite a consultation indicating that 50 per cent of residents supported the idea. “The Edinburgh result shows people are not yet willing to give up their right to drive. We feel there are lots of other ways of tackling congestion, such as better buses and more park-and-ride schemes.”

Leeds council said: “We are not even going to begin thinking about congestion charging until we have our long-awaited tram scheme in place and we have assessed the impact it has on congestion.”

Even Bristol, which had gone farthest among the English cities in developing a proposal for tolls, said yesterday that it had no immediate plans. The council’s Labour leadership found Liberal Democrats and Conservatives uniting to oppose the scheme, as in Edinburgh.

Cities other than London have a far higher proportion of residents who would have to pay the charge. In London only 10 per cent of those who work in the charging zone commute by car. In other cities it is closer to 50 per cent.

Mr Darling told The Times that he still hoped to introduce a more advanced form of charging in which drivers would pay a fee for each mile travelled.

He said: “There is still the possibility of doing a local pilot of a national distance-based scheme well within ten years. This could involve an area covered by a group of councils.”

About forty local authorities have expressed interest in such a scheme because the Government is offering extra money to those which participate.

Transport 2000, the lobby group, said the Government should take the lead in championing tolls rather than relying on local authorities to introduce them. Stephen Joseph, the group’s director, said: “The Government should now step in and explain why it is important for us all to use our cars less.”

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