THERE is little chance of London following Paris in banning cars, not least because Ken Livingstone makes £100 million profit a year from people driving into the centre.

The Mayor of London plans this summer to raise the congestion charge from £5 to £8. He claims that this will reduce traffic by another 5 per cent, yet he is still counting on receiving 100,000 payments a day. Even Mr Livingstone, who has never passed his driving test and takes the Tube to work, admits that cities need a certain level of traffic to avoid becoming ghost towns.

His strategy is to tame the car rather than ban it. Pavements may be widened and short sections of road may be closed, but he has no plans for widespread pedestrianisation.

The benefits of small-scale schemes have been demonstrated in Trafalgar Square, where the closure of the north side to traffic has helped attract thousands of extra visitors each day.

Mr Livingstone is drawing up a list of 100 public spaces across the capital that will be made more pedestrian-friendly. Subways and railings will be removed and cars will no longer have priority.

The Mayor has announced the first 24 spaces, but progress has been slow because of doubts over funding and getting local authorities to agree on designs.

Richard Rogers, the Mayor’s adviser on architecture, is pressing him to go much further and to ban cars on Sundays from the Embankment between Westminster and Blackfriars bridges.

Transport for London is concerned that traffic diverted from the road would overwhelm other streets. However, Living Streets, which campaigns for pedestrians, argues that too much attention is being paid to the needs of a vociferous minority. Only one in thirteen people entering Central London between 7am and 10am travels by car, with the remainder using public transport, walking or cycling.

Philip Connolly, a spokesman for Living Streets, said: “Many streets in Central London are now so dominated by pedestrians that removing cars is the next logical step. We could have pavement cafés to rival anything in Paris.”

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