Ken wants to fine you £20 more if you forget C-charge

Ken Livingstone wants to increase the penalty from £100 to £120 to bring it in line with other parking offences in London. Those paying within the 14 days will still receive a 50 per cent discount but still pay £10 more than the current rate.

The Mayor has been advised by Transport for London to introduce a tougher penalty regime, despite opposition from a majority of respondents to a summer consultation.

The plan has outraged drivers and motoring groups who said they pay enough to drive through London and should not have to pay any more.

The Association of British Drivers said the increase was "simply unnecessary" especially as most fines were incurred as a result of a "simple oversight" rather than an attempt to defraud and there was no reason to link them to serious driving infringements.

Its London co-ordinator Roger Lawson said: "It just shows how desperate TfL and Mr Livingstone are to raise revenue from the congestion charge."

A spokesman for Mr Livingstone said: "The Mayor will make an announcement on this soon."

TfL says the fines are to ensure "compliance" with the congestion charge "and not to raise additional revenue". About 72 per cent of penalties are paid - the "vast majority" within the 14-day discount period. TfL took £55million in revenue from congestion charge fines in the year to April this year but is expected to make £95 million in the 2007-08 financial year because of the zone's western extension. This will be the second time the Mayor has raised C-charge penalties. They rose from £80 to £100 shortly after he was re-elected in 2004. Charges for clamping, removal and crushing will also rise.

Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, who wants a review of the western extension, said: "Ken Livingstone is penalising Londoners for what is in most cases an honest mistake. He should be making it easier for motorists to pay by introducing direct debit schemes."

The Mayor says that within a year he hopes to launch a direct debit system that will deduct the £8 charge each day a motorist enters the zone.

He admitted this copied the thinking behind a new device, called the Ken-Buster, that was launched last month and uses a satellite tracking device fitted in cars to automatically trigger payment of the charge. Mr Livingstone said: "By the end of next year, we will have got that."

London's boroughs increased the fines for parking on a yellow line, driving in a bus lane and blocking a yellow box junction from £100 to £120 in July.