£750 bill to park cars outside family homes

Chelsea tractor: Two-car families could be hit with a permit charge of £750
13 April 2012

Motorists across the country could be forced to pay hundreds of pounds to park outside their own home.

Drivers of so-called 'gas guzzling cars' are to be charged £300 for a parking permit by one London council.

See here also...

• 'Green motoring' put to the test

• Why there's no room for the gas-guzzling 4X4

It will rise to £450 for a second high-polluting car, such as a 4x4, giving a staggering family total of £750.

Now the Local Government Association, which represents councils across the country, says the charges could be extended elsewhere.

Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board, said: "Local authorities up and down the country will be watching these proposals with great interest.

"Councils are on the frontline in the fight against climate change.

"We all have a responsibility to reduce emissions and protect our environment for future generations, and variable charging may be one possible way of achieving this."

Motoring groups responded by saying motorists should be given "incentives - not penalties".

Some of the cars covered by the maximum charge are family vehicles, such as the Renault Espace. There is no legal bar on councils adopting the charges - which could raise millions of pounds - as the law already allows them to levy a fee for parking permits.

The Daily Mail has learnt other local authorities are already considering similar moves.

Some already offer incentive schemes, such as free or reduced permits for electric or low-emission cars.

But yesterday's move by Richmond Council, in south west London, marks a step change by instead punishing those who not.

Moving in this direction would also be in keeping with the current political climate, which has seen the major parties clashing over who has the "greenest" credentials.

Tory leader David Cameron has already said he would offer incentives for green car use.

And, in the Budget, Chancellor Gordon Brown raised road taxes for the most polluting vehicles, with the worst offenders now attracting a vehicle excise duty of £210.

But critics said it marked a move from the "carrot to the stick". It follows a similar switch on re-cycling.

It has also emerged families could face charges of up to £200 a year for having their rubbish taken away.

Councils are set introduce the extra fees for those who put out bin bags instead of recycling sacks.

Under the Richmond parking proposal, permit holders - who currently pay a flat-rate of £100 per vehicle - would be switched to a sliding scale, depending on a vehicle's emissions of the harmful CO2 greenhouse gas.

The Liberal Democrat-council said that, in future, people using electric cars would pay nothing.

Smaller, environmentally friendly cars such as the Toyota Prius and Fiat Panda, would also pay less than at present.

But the vast majority of vehicles would pay more. Those with high-performance and 4x4s - dubbed 'Chelsea Tractors' - would be hit by a 200 per cent increase to £300 for the first vehicle. Having a second family car in the same category would cost a further £450. As well as Jaguars and Porsches, the top category also includes the more modest Renault Espace.

Families with one gas-guzzling car and one more eco-friendly vehicle will receive little respite -even if the more-polluting vehicle is rarely driven.

The levy is on parking the car, not how far it is travels - even though it is driving the car which produces emissions.

The south-west London council expects to rake-in £1m from the move, but denies it is a money-making exercise. It claims the income will reduce, as residents switch to more eco-friendly vehicles.

But Luke Bosdet, a spokesman for AA motoring trust, said: "The increase in parking charges picks on people carriers and large family vehicles as well as large 4x4s.

"Richmond council will be saying to large families 'you're not welcome here' because if you get a family of two adults and three or four children, you need a large vehicle, and large vehicles need large engines.

"They're raising the costs of having a large family, and it's just not fair."

Paul Watters, also of the AA Motoring Trust, said: "It is probably stretching what residents' parking is about too far."

When it began, it was designed to help people who had parking problems near their homes, with money raised used to cover the cost of permits, but now some local authorities were using it to raise revenue, he warned.

Sheila Rainger, spokeswoman for the RAC Foundation, said: "We are in favour of encouraging people to choose greener, more efficient cars - but we'd much rather see incentives than penalties."

Tony Arbour, London Assembly Conservative member for South West London, said: "If this council's leaders were serious about curbing car use, then they should withdraw subsidies and remove the car parking spaces they make available to council staff.

"As it stands, this is just another revenue-raising exercise."

Critics also pointed out the irony of going to such lengths to cut CO2 emissions in a part of London which is beneath the flightpath of hundreds of planes from Heathrow Airport.

But Richmond council leader Serge Lourie said: "Climate change is the single greatest challenge facing the world today. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it is not happening, or that dealing with it is up to somebody else.

"Richmond upon Thames is one of the highest carbon dioxide-emitting boroughs in London.

"For too long it has been seen as a problem that only central governments or international organisations could address. The truth is that we must all start acting now at local level."

A spokesman for Greenpeace said: "We welcome any move to encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient cars.

"Climate change is the greatest threat we face, and anything that gets people out of gas-guzzlers and into less polluting cars has to be welcomed."

Tony Bosworth, senior transport campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "Encouraging people to use fuel-efficient cars is a key way of tackling climate change, so the Richmond scheme is an important step in the right direction."

Councils which already offer incentives include Islington, in London, which gives a £20 discounts to cars with an engine size of 1400cc or less. Westminster offers free parking to people with electric cars.

But most councils have viewed motorists as a way of making cash.

Along with the police and Government, they have already been accused of waging war on motorists by raking in tens of millions of pounds in parking fines, speeding tickets and fuel tax.

Last week, London Mayor Ken Livingstone announced the congestion charge will treble for large 4x4s and other fuel-hungry cars.

He is proposing a discount on the £8 rate for "greener cars" but an increase to £25 for "environmentally damaging" vehicles including the Range Rover, Toyota Land Cruiser and some versions of the Renault Espace and BMW 5-series.

The Mayor "congratulated" Richmond and called for other councils in the city to adopt similar measures.

A spokesman for DEFRA said: "Councils have an important role to play in tackling climate change and reducing CO2 emissions."

A spokeswoman for Hackney Borough Council in East London said: "The council already have green incentives in place and as part of our review of parking policy we are considering penalising families that have more than one car.

"The council would also look at more drastic measures to reduce pollution such as those being talked about by Richmond council."

Officials from Camden Borough Council said the authority is currently considering adopting a similar scheme to that proposed in Richmond.

"We are already looking at our parking permit charges and our residents have told us that they would back a scheme where polluters paid more," said a spokeswoman.

"The council already has incentives in place for electric cars which only pay 25 per cent of car parking charges."

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