Councillors will tonight discuss a new transport study which challenges the idea of congestion charging in the West Midlands. Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is expected to "note" the Coventry Solihull Warwickshire Partnership transport report, although it will not become policy. The "sub-regional" study claims a tax-neutral road user charging scheme, as proposed by the Government earlier this summer, would only reduce traffic levels by five per cent and is likely to encourage rat-running through residential streets. It states: "It is clear from this study that a tax-neutral system, whereby the current taxes on vehicles are simply replaced by road user charges, will not be sufficient to make any significant change to the demand for road travel." The prospect of road user charging in the West Midlands increased recently when the leaders of all seven West Midland district authorities tentatively agreed to talk to the Government about introducing some form of demand management system. The Department for Transport is dangling the multimillion pound carrot of the Transport Innovation Fund for the conurbation that agrees to pilot the scheme. Most observers agree that the TIF will be the only funding stream available for major new transport projects for the forseeable future. A spokeswoman for Solihull Council said the CSWP report would not become policy. "The recommendation is to note the report and that means it will be there for the council to refer to in the future." A spokesman for the West Midlands Local Transport Plan bid, which was recently sent to the DfT and included a willingness to discuss road pricing, said the CSWP report did not conflict with it. "The report looks at one form of road pricing and found it only reduced traffic by a small amount and encouraged rat running. "There are countless different schemes out there and Solihull is noting the report, rather than adopting it as policy, so I don't think this conflicts at all." The report, written by consultants Faber Maunsell, also recommends widening the M42 to four lanes - between the M40 and M6 - in about ten to 15 years time to cope with a predicted 25 per cent growth in car journeys in the area by 2021. Among its recommendations, it also calls for increasing town centre parking charges, possibly above inflation, and the introduction of modern, integrated ticketing technology to make public transport more attractive. | 
