Pressure mounts over road tolls

Pressure is continuing to mount on the government over controversial plans to introduce road pricing.

As environmental groups urge ministers to stand firm, the Downing Street website e-petition demanding the policy be scrapped has been signed by more than 1.2 million people.

The website apparently struggled under the weight of users on Monday and was unavailable for a time.

Former Labour transport minister John Spellar said it was "absurd that the government is allowing itself to be driven by the liberal intelligentsia", while motoring groups drew comparisons with the deeply unpopular poll tax.

Transport secretary Douglas Alexander used a series of interviews on Monday to say the campaign was "just one contribution to the debate", and said the government would attempt to reconcile competing opinions.

A Downing Street spokesman welcomed the "lively political debate", but warned "doing nothing isn't an option".

"This isn't us stepping immediately to a national pricing scheme, it is about setting up pilot schemes to find out the facts, and then learn the experience of that and then decide where we go," the spokesman said.

Last year a Treasury-commissioned study led by former BA chief Rod Eddington said road pricing could benefit the economy by £28bn a year, and warned of serious economic consequences if the problem is not tackled.

The government has begun to approve funding for transport schemes around the country which combine "demand management measures" like road pricing with improvements to public transport.

Friends of the Earth urged ministers to do more to win the argument over road pricing.

The group's senior transport campaigner, Tony Bosworth, said: "The biggest problem we face is not congestion, it is climate change."