Mayor Alejandro Sanchez has declared there are numerous examples of congestion charges levied on motorists across Europe that have existed for years, similar to his proposed toll system at the frontier.

In a statement Sr Sanchez yesterday insisted on his idea of charging “the millions of visitors” transiting La Linea to cross the frontier into Gibraltar each year, allegedly to “compensate for the detrimental effects suffered by La Linea for being located beside Gibraltar.”

 

The Mayor said there were sound economic, environmental and heritage reasons for this and pointed to the London Congestion Charge as an example of a charge already in existence.

Meanwhile Sr Sanchez reiterated that the 5,000 Spanish workers in Gibraltar would be exempted from the measure.

In the past Sr Sanchez has bitterly complained that other than causing traffic collapse to La Linea each summer, the city “does not even obtain one euro” from the thousands of cars that circulate on a road built on Ayuntamiento land “which essentially deviates traffic away from La Linea centre.”

He said La Linea still has to provide resources such as additional police officers to direct the flow of vehicles.

As regards the toll, the Mayor has argued that Durham had implemented a similar proposal as well as Valetta in Malta and Riga in Lithuania.

He said such an initiative was beneficial to the parking situation during peak tourist seasons, helped to protect heritage sites and buildings, improve air quality in cities and improve its tourist appeal, while encouraging people to walk and use bicycles instead of cars.

“In recent years this toll has been extended to urban areas to reduce congestion and pollution problems and also restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

“Notable economists have carried out studies and supported the introduction of this measure to optimize the use of transport infrastructure namely roads, sea-ports, airports and waterways,” he declared.

Referring to the London Congestion Charge, Sr Sanchez said that this has been applied for years in the city centre as a congestion charge levied by the public entity London Transport.

“There are many cities implementing this charge in a wholly legal way. The Ayuntamiento will continue studying options available to it in this respect.”

He added: “The abandonment of the central Government toward La Linea is total. We have almost 10,000 unemployed out of a population of some 65.000. The situation is therefore unsustainable and intolerable.”

“The Zapatero Government has to realise that La Linea is also Spain, and that we need support to reduce the economic gap between the two sides.”