Thousands of fleets operating in the capital are facing stricter rules to register their vehicles for the new London Fleet Auto Pay congestion charge discount scheme.

A change in the rules, which will affect over 5,400 fleets and 21,000 vehicles, mean each time a fleet attempts to register a vehicle, it must provide a proof that it is a genuine business vehicle.

Previously, fleets could just enter the registration number and the name of the registered owner.

Fleets must also provide proof of business insurance for each vehicle.

According to a spokesman for Transport for London (TfL), which oversees the running of the charge, the changes are “safeguards” designed to prevent non-fleet cars being registered for the £1 discount.

“These are extra checks to prove these are valid business vehicles,” she said.

“These are extra safeguards.”

Prior to the changes, checks were made with DVLA to ascertain whether vehicles were genuine fleet vehicles.

Now the onus is on fleets to prove this, despite the fact that there appears to have been no abuse of the previous system.

“We do not believe that there are any vehicles fraudulently registered for the fleet scheme,” confirmed the spokesman.

“If we became aware of such a vehicle then we would remove it immediately.”

The discount scheme provides a £1 daily reduction per vehicle for fleets of more than 10 vehicles, as well other benefits such as monthly direct debit payments.

One fleet manager told Fleet News she received no notification and only discovered the changes when she checked to see why a vehicle she had tried to register had not appeared on the system.

Wendy Barton fleet manager at Gamestec Leisure, which has a fleet of 900 vehicles, 150 of which regularly go into London, said: “We recently tried to register a vehicle as normal, but then discovered it was not on the system.

"So we checked and found out we had to provide copies of lease agreements and insurance details.

“Nobody contacted us – there has been no communication about these changes.”

Barton said every time the company needs one of its vehicles to go into London, she is faced with a process that now takes much longer and is more complicated than before.

“Talk about causing extra work and administration!

"Why on earth are these changes necessary when the scheme has worked perfectly well without these requirements previously?” she asks.

“For fleets like us who utilise a number of different lease providers, this means extra work for us and our lease providers just so we can do the right thing and pay the congestion charge.”