Porsche is on a collision course with the authorities planning London’s proposed £25-a-day congestion charge – and it emerged today that the two parties could end up in court.
Lawyers acting for TfL and the mayor’s office have rejected the sports car maker’s request for changes to the tax, which is set to treble from today’s £8 charge. Porsche said it would ‘in the near future’ submit a request for a judicial review.
The Mayor and TfL will then have 21 days to acknowledge the request and a further 35 days to ready their defence. A judge will decide if the case can go to court. If the case is rejected, Porsche can appeal.
Porsche v the mayor: how it works
Should the test case go to court, a date will be set for the hearings and, should Porsche win, the proposed congestion charge will have to be scrapped. If Porsche loses, it’ll be forced to pay the costs, but Andy Goss, managing director of Porsche Cars GB, is confident of a win.
‘The new £25 charge will have no meaningful impact on congestion and TfL’s own figures show the anticipated CO2 emissions savings in a year could be equivalent to less than four hours of emissions from Heathrow. All it will do is unfairly hit large numbers of drivers in London and undermine London’s attractiveness as a place to do business. We are therefore formally applying for judicial review to challenge the mayor’s proposals and we are confident we have a strong case.’
In other news, Porsche HQ in Stuttgart has denied claims in the media that it intends to increase its stake in Volkswagen to 75 percent. Porsche claims that the German Federal State of Lower Saxony’s 20 percent holding in VW makes the probability of acquiring the share ‘very small indeed’. Porsche says: ‘The background of the current media reports is obviously provided by rumours on the Stock Exchange which can be traced back to the speculative mind games of analysts and investors.’
Click here to read how Porsche will take a 51 percent stake in Volkswagen