Johnson scraps plan to tax London gas-guzzlers

LONDON (Reuters) - Mayor Boris Johnson has scrapped plans to increase the central London congestion charge to 25 pounds a day for owners of gas-guzzling cars.

The CO2 charge, brainchild of former Mayor Ken Livingstone, was due to have come into effect in October. As well as penalising bigger and faster cars, it would have scrapped the normal eight-pound charge for small, fuel-efficient vehicles.

Critics of the plan had claimed it would have been expensive to implement and might even have increased pollution by allowing thousands of small cars into central London free of charge.

The Conservatives had pledged to scrap the CO2 charge in Johnson's election manifesto. He was elected in May.

Sports car maker Porsche had been challenging Livingstone in the courts and the scrapping of the CO2 charge means its costs will have to be paid by Transport for London.

Porsche said it would donate the costs, which it expected to be a six-figure sum, to Skidz, a charity devoted to taking at-risk youths off the streets and a life of knife crime, and giving them training in mechanical skills and maintenance.

The money has been earmarked for the opening of a new branch of the charity in the western borough of Hillingdon.

Johnson said he was delighted to have been able to scrap the proposed charge.

"I believe the proposal would actually have made congestion worse," he said in a statement.