Volunteering and the Manchester Congestion Charge

Comming to a town/city near you soon if we let it. Those living and/or working in Manchester will no doubt be aware of the proposed "congestion" charge; aka yet another tax dressed in "Green", and heres me thinking Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. The "poor" in this case being volunteers who volunteer in the central Manchester area. It is predicted that there will be a charge of £5 per day for people to come into the city, as such with limited funds and ever decreasing budgets, how do these "green wash" idealists in their ivory towers expect projects to fund their volunteers in relation to out of pocket travelling expenses, in order that volunteers can continue to enguage in all valuable voluntary projects in the city, that often help the most deprived and vulnarable. The Manchester green argument exposed: It could be argued from a green perspective that volunteers could use public transport; however Manchester is not London and never will be in relation to having an extensive tube network, for those not from the city, we have in reality a few tram links to a small number of towns in the greater Manchester area, the proposal would only add 2/3 more links by 2013; the rest of the infrastructure would be made up of more unreliable, smelly and expensive buses. For those who buy into the congestion argument, It is also worth remembering, that most of the congestion in the city has been caused not by a significant increase in cars, but rather as with other towns and cities, it has often been caused by people with a vested interested closing off lanes to cars and making them bus lanes, so in fact we have the same number of cars with half the road space equalling congestion, a classic self fulfilling prophecy, leading to greater revenue. As such can i ask AVM-fellow co-ordinators/Managers, espescially those in Manchester to raise this as a sector concern; and to ask for at the very least that those enguaged in volunteering activities are exempt, or like driving itself, volunteering within Manchester will become more and more based on the ability to pay. Your town/city could be next!