Businesses and motoring groups are concerned after councils made plans to charge workers to park at their workplace. The Government has been asking the councils to seek out different ways of raising money, and it appears that this is the result.
It seems that levies on workplace parking will not be banned, as was commonly thought when ministers pronounced the termination of the “war on motorists” after the Coalition formed.
Stephen Glaister is a professor at Imperial College London and the director of the RAC foundation. He has voiced concern that councils are contemplating levies. He states that councils have had this power for over a decade, and that they should use their power to “deal with congestion, not to raise general revenue”.
Local authorities are indeed investigating claims that this may be an effort to increase funds. An AA spokesman stated that rather than ending the “war on motorists”, councils are “going to open another front.”
The councils that are currently planning to implement the levies include those in York, Hampshire, Bournemouth, Wiltshire, Bristol, Devon, Leeds, and South Somerset. Millions of people every day are driving their cars to work, and many will be upset that these levies will be implemented.
It seems these levies are no longer just a method for cutting carbon emissions and congestion. Nottingham’s Council will be the first to make levies, including a £250 levy for local workers, which will rise to £350 for all business with over 11 spaces for parking.
