West End ban looms
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by Lee Kimber • Hauliers who deliver to businesses in the West End of London face higher costs after Westminster Council teamed up with National Heritage to propose pedestrianising much of central London.
Trucks and cars could be banned from Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Parliament Square by 2000 if many of the 200 groups due to consult on the plan this summer give their agreement.
A Freight Transport Association spokesman fears that local deliveries are likely to be constrained by the kind of 10:0016:00hrs restrictions that govern drops in many other towns, although the costs to through traffic are impossible to calculate.
"It's unlikely to be a dramatic inconvenience or to impose dramatic costs," he says. "But it will increase costs."
Tesco, which delivers its own goods to some of the largest food superstores close to both squares, says that the plan is in its early stages.
"Our transport department is aware of it," says a spokesman, "but we wouldn't comment on it."
With the £20m plan already winning favour from the London Chambers of Commerce, through traffic looks likely to be diverted along the Embankment, where it could link with west London through the one corner of Parliament Square still open.
Local businesses reliant on tourism see it as a