London 1 Manchester 0

So, the good people of Manchester said a huge, all-encompassing "no thanks" to the idea of Congestion Charging. Asking the public if they would like to pay for something that they've had for free for the past 100 years is rarely going to get an overly positive reaction ("Sorry about this but how would you feel about having to pay £10 to breathe in the air that's all around you?" "No problem, that's a great idea, can I pay by direct debit?") but the negativity that greeted Manchester's Congestion Charging idea was greeted with a fair amount of surprise in some circles.

I received a number of "told you so" emails from friends and colleagues and to be fair we had spent the previous day guessing what the percentages of NO v YES were going to be so it didn't come as a great surprise to me. However, that being said, I know how hard the likes of Sir Howard Bernstein, Stephen Clark and Jack Opiola had worked on convincing the public that a congestion charging scheme was exactly what was needed to solve Greater Manchester's growing traffic problems.

As one consultant said "It's all very well them saying no but they'll soon start complaining when there's no money available to repair the tram network" and you have to say that he has a point.

For those of us that live in Greater London there's the feintly embarrassing feeling that other cities have been playing a game with us. "London, got an idea for you. You say yes to congestion charging, right? And then we'll see it's worked and when it does then we'll have it as well. So, you go first, what with you being the capital and all that..". So we say yes to Congestion Charging, then five years later we turn round, with every intention of nodding to Manchester, et al, only to find they've gone home and left us there on our own, like a mug.

I may have taken this analogy too far but is London going to be left holding the Congestion Charging baby for ever? Surely not...

KB