I see that Nottingham (appropriately, the home of Robin Hood) is mooted to be the first council to introduce a pilot scheme to tax commuters who park at their workplace.
Yet another example of the driver being used as a cashcow. Why don't they just hang us upside down, slit our throats and bleed us dry, properly?
I wouldn't mind if the transport infrastructure was in place to encourage people to use public transport into work. But it isn't. It's ok for people like me who travel into the City of London as I have a frequent and, usually, good train service. Not today though as N/Express E/Anglia is on strike .
I feel sorry for people who live out in the sticks where you get a bus every 100 years. How on earth else are they supposed to et into work? Let's dig up the festering corpse of Dr Beeching and drag it through the streets.
I think Nottingham drivers ought to blockade the city centre until the council members declare that it is not going to happen.
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What seems extraordinary is that this isn't a tax on people commuting into town, but a tax on those who make provision to park off the street so minimising congestion.
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Employers are going to be charged £250 per space per year. This can be passed on to the employees and may rise to £350 within 2 years, according to today's DT. tinyurl.com/kvhya6
And what are the payers going to see for this cash outlay? Sad all I'll bet!
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What about shift workers? Even in places where public transport is relatively good, it rarely runs 24 hours a day. Shift workers have to use their cars when working unsocial hours. Why should they be penalised?
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What about shift workers? Even in places where public transport is relatively good it rarely runs 24 hours a day. Shift workers have to use their cars when working unsocial hours. Why should they be penalised?
Apparently employers who run shifts are the worst 'offenders' in providing parking space because they know their people can't use public transport. Therefore they especially qualify for punishment, being captive victims of their own temerity in employing people on round the clock working. Typical swinish tax extraction.
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In my memory of the UK it was only councils and government offices that provided decent sized car parks for their workers - at the taxpayers' expense, of course.
What's the betting they'll be exempted from this latest piece of highway robbery?
And how long will it be before the government casts its covetous eyes on all those huge supermarket car parks?
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Will it make any difference that my employer charges monthly for most parking spaces it provides already? Something like £36 a month. I presume the councils will say "that ain't nothing to do with us" then still slap on their tax. Fantastic.
If I am forced onto the bus, my last bus home leaves at 5.20pm. Does this mean I can work to rule and be out the door at 5pm? Be better for the economy that way.......
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Manny commuters already pay such a tax, its called parking charges at the stations where they park their car before they catch the train/bus into the city... my local one charges about £2 a day...
Now they have said they are going to use the money to spend on better public transport before I comment further I'd want to know exactly what they propose, until then its a bit unfair to comment.
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I've often wondered what the authorities would do if all motorists gave using their cars for a week and tried to use public transport. Would the country grind to a complete halt as I suspect it would?
If they do push this through they'll only waste the money.
Steve.
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Would the country grind to a complete halt as I suspect it would?
Probably...
If they do push this through they'll only waste the money.
and thats exactly my concern re the money...
Who's in charge there, btw?
Edited by b308 on 31/07/2009 at 12:49
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>> If they do push this through they'll only waste the money. >>
Why expect any different, they waste 90% of the rest of the money they raise.
BTW look at the introduction date - won't happen!
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The closest we got to motorists not using their cars and seeking alternatives was the fuel crisis about 8 years ago.
If I remember, the roads were very empty.
Some people shared cars. A lot of people took time off work. A few even tried public transport.
It was Tony Blair who was in a panic. He realised that if people can't get to work, then it will damage the economy (and more importantly to him, won't be paying tax).
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b308 - you are seriously lucky! Grantham and Peterborough charge £10 a day. I have taken to parking at my place of work (free at the moment) and taking a commuter train to the Main Line I want to travel on.
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Does this also apply to the car parks at council premises? I'm betting not...
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it was only councils and government offices that provided decent sized car parks for their workers - at the taxpayers' expense, of course. What's the betting they'll be exempted from this latest piece of highway robbery? >>
Does this also apply to the car parks at council premises? I'm betting not... >>
If they charge "their" own car parks, where do you think they will get the money from?
The council tax payer, of course. It makes no difference, the tax payer pays in the end. We have a bottomless pit of money, don't we?
Another stealth benefit for those who are exempted from council tax.
Use your vote wisely.
Edited by jbif on 31/07/2009 at 14:24
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The charge for the station car park is not a tax, it's a charge to use a private car park.
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Two problems with this idea:
If they charge based on number of spaces used, how will they calculate it for home workers who rarely visit the office and multi-site staff who could use several company car parks on an irregular basis?
If, on the other hand, they charge based on the number of spaces available (in use or not), will this lead to employers digging up/blocking off car parking spaces when people are made redundant?
Perhaps they'll just pass a law to allow councils to install pay and display machines in private car parks next??
Edited by TheOilBurner on 31/07/2009 at 14:19
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Another point, note that the Transport Minister Sadiq Khan backs this plan. He lives, works and represents an area of London, and so, typical of a transport minister, knows nothing of life outside the big smoke. I wouldn't be surprised if told that he doesn't even drive, because that seems to be the norm for that role too. He does mention using the tube on his blog, so that makes you wonder...
I'm sure many of these London centric MPs would be astounded to see just how bad public transport is outside of Greater London, especially around the suburbs that have sprung up in the last 30 odd years.
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What will the money raied be spent on anyway? Fixed luxurious camps for people who call themselves "Travellers"? IVF for illegal immigrants? More duck houses? Allowances for empty Main Homes? The possibilities are endless!
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Transport Minister Sadiq Khan backs this plan >>
his contact email is at:
www.dft.gov.uk/press/ministers/sadiqkhan
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By all means get hot under the collar but note that we are at the height of the summer 'silly season' and not all stories in the media are what they seem. This has been discussed in similar vein on here some years ago and it was the same council and a recognised concept of a council charging developers for providing car spaces in new office developments. Since business rates or its equivalent are payable on all business premises anyway, Nottingham is just being a bit greedy and trying to disguise it by appearing 'green' friendly. Bottom line is that it is already a 'stealth tax' happening in many other places where companies rather than staff are absorbing the cost. HMRC already considers car parking a taxable benefit or it did when I had a annual season provided by a company.
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The next step is not only to tax people to park at work, but then at home aswell, mark my words.
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tax people to park... at home as well
Some people already have to pay for parking outside their own houses. Depends where they live.
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I feel sorry for people who live out in the sticks where you get a bus every 100 years. How on earth else are they supposed to et into work?
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Why do they live out in the sticks in the first place?
Why too do the planners fill rural villages with houses when there's nowhere local to work they are all forced to commute long distances, and then be penalised for it.
People cry in their gin & tonics about villages dying but if small firms are prevented from operating in the countryside then villages are just an extension of the local (or not so local) town.
This may seem a bit off thread but it's the cause of the problem and it's only set to get worse!
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Following on from good planning ideas (?) a local school was recently rebuilt with far less parking provision than it previously had. The result of this is that the staff now park in the college car park on the other side of the road and then when that's full park on the road outside the school. The upshot of this good planning is that at peak times it's a real problem driving along this road because it isn't wide enough for 2 cars to pass with parked vehicles so there's lots of stop go driving which is just what you want outside a school and a college.
Obviously a good job we don't have idiots in charge or who knows what would happen.
To add to the cost comments, when motoring becomes too expensive to stomach I will give up, the bright side of this that I will be so much better off financially. Don't know who will be targeted next when the motorists run out of money or give up.
Steve.
Edited by glowplug on 31/07/2009 at 15:50
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Once upon a time in the 80s and 90s there was a Council.
And the Council Planning Committee did issue a decree which stated:
For all new factory buildings, the car park must be double the area of the actual building.
And there were factories with 30 employees and 200 parking spaces on the new industrial estates.
Now I only know of one council which applied this principle.
You may know of others.
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"What will the money raied be spent on anyway? "
It will go towards funding a £1billion extension of the tram system, which is already subsidised to the tune of around £10 per passenger journey! It is a very Marxist Council affiliated with Common Purpose.
Edited by Hamsafar on 31/07/2009 at 21:50
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Brilliant.
Only in Britain could this lunacy fester and grow so strong.
Thats the way forward from a recession lads...penalise those who work.
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Well from the various studies I've read the only way to get alot of drivers to think of other means of getting to work is to tackle parking head on - remove it or reduce it or make it alot more expensive...a study in the Bay area of San Francisco showed that the availability of free guaranteed parking at a workplace destination meant approx 90% of people drove...remove, make it risky that a space might not be available or add serious price tag and miraculously about 60% of people switch to other means.
So that is what is leading to this sort of policy - I think a possible future step is also to seek to remove free parking from all supermarkets and other out of town developments or at least the new developments thereof...
Provision of somewhere to park is a significant perk and is now been seen as such.
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>>.. the only way to get a lot of drivers to think of other means of getting to work is to tackle parking head on - remove it or reduce it or make it a lot more expensive.>>
So what about those who, like one of my offspring, drives around 35 miles each way to get to work?
Public transport is an absolute No No - it would be completely impossible to get to work and back.
What's more, even if attainable, it would probably be many times more expensive than the cost of the fuel involved, without even mentioning the time it would take up.
Edited by Stuartli on 01/08/2009 at 00:50
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It's not saying there is no parking available but the value of the perk is being monetised - your offspring would need to factor it in to their commuting cost. The alternative is that we progressively move nearer to work (although many commuter car journeys are much shorter than your offspring - imagine many are barely 5 miles) and or organise our workplace/home locations around transport hubs such that people can at least travel by other means - at least not perpetuating existing development approaches which force people to commute by car because there is no other option that can be viably installed/used. Will be interesting to see if in the future if car spaces are taxed/restricted if companies will chose against remote business park locations and choose space in higher density hubs to reduce travel costs and time for staff?
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>>Will beinteresting to see if in the future if car spaces are taxed/restricted if companies will chose against remote business park locations and choose space in higher density hubs to reduce travel costs and time for staff?
Or run a private bus service from transport hub to work location.
Edited by Old Navy on 01/08/2009 at 09:38
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>>The alternative is that we progressively move nearer to work >>
Wonderful to hear people trot such proposals out - it would prove not only much more expensive, but involve considerable upheaval and, even then, there's no guarantee that any job would still be there over time.
In the case of my offspring, there is ample parking available at his employer's premises and he has done the commuting for many years.
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The local CBI and businesses such as Boots are mounting a High Court legal challenge to the debacle. www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/homenews/Businesses-loo...l
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MIL's 4 mile journey to our house takes 1 hour 45 minutes by bus - she wishes she could drive!
Pricing people off the road reduces employment. I would not commute for 3.5 hrs a day for the minimum wage!
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Well it seems a very British thing to want to live or be happy to live a long way from work - Part of that obviously is the relatively low density of most post war suburban housing - things are necessarily further apart and such estates weren't built to work with viable public transport (unlike older suburbs). I believe we have the longest average commute in Europe and although we are not a massive island we use drive higher mileages than many continental countries even if we have slightly lower car ownership levels. It always amazes me at an new workplace I turn up at that there are people doing commutes of 50 miles or more either by car or some public transport. I once worked for a firm where we moved our German office from Frankfurt to Cologne and would have required I think less than an hour on the super fast ICE train and with a long subsidy from the firm for a season ticket - over 80% of the office said no and took redundancy. They expected their commute to be less than 20 mins as it is in most German cities as they are more densely developed and have logical public transport that makes a 20 min commute quite feasible.
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Nothing is so simple - for the last 40 years a mobile work force and long distance commuting has been goverment policy
As with all initiatives this is not carrot and stick but just stick with many promises of regular checks and more police state type tactics
As an employer I know local councils have been counting parking company spaces for years - this is a civil service planned method of getting more money from businesses.
Evidently public transport to work only works if you work in a twn centre - other wise it is a nightmare
I live in an urbane area - but it is a mile walk to the nearest bus stop for the start of a route I would need to take by public transport
The biggest way to reduce traffic is too make roads safer for cyclists, which is a growing way of travel
But virtualy all traffic calming road furniture puts the cyclist and the motor vehicle onto the same narrow Rd i.e collision course
Despite this, at the age 0f 72 I commute by bike the eight miles to work if the day is fair and by car if wet
Many others are doing the same - but with no wide cycle tracks and cycle stop points ahead of motor traffic at traffic lights - so the cyclist is in full view - the only safe way for cyclists is to put themselves in full view by stopping in an illegal position or jumping lights
We need better public transport and cycle friendly roads and road systems to take millions of the roads - not a parking tax backed up with penal clauses
It is about time this advance of making law abiding citizens into crimminals - just because they will pay was stopped
L the 3rd
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The government targeting the motorist again what a surprise!
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Nothing is so simple - for the last 40 years a mobile work force and long distance commuting has been goverment policy
Err, how?
As far as I can see the Gov have done everything in their power to discourage car use, higher taxes, speed reductions, very little road building....
No, its been individual choice that has lead us into a situation where people are silly enough to think that a 50 mile each way commute is acceptable...
Perhaps common sense will prevail, but until motoring gets a lot more expensive I doubt it.
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For any folk who think that the answer is as simple as living near to work, the true problem is that since both partners in any household (excluding single people, obviously) tend to work, there are two jobs to be near, with little chance that both of those jobs are in the same place!
Combine that with the fickle nature of jobs today, and you're lucky if you can get one of you near your work place, let alone both of you, for very long. 2-3 years along the line, one or both of you are working somewhere else...
Add in the huge cost and hassle of moving house (especially if you have kids in school or elderly relatives nearby that need your help) then very often moving closer to work just isn't an option.
No easy answers here at all.
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TheOilBurner is right. I moved from Kent to a job up north about 10 years ago. I'd been fed up with commuting to London every working day - 2 hours there, and 2 hours back. In my new location I was lucky enough to have a 20 minute walk to work. That lasted a few years then my employer folded, and I managed to get another job on the outskirts of a nearby city. It's about a 35 mile commute, and takes nearly an hour. The equivalent journey by train requires about half an hour by bus to the station, an hour on the train, then another 20 minutes by bus to work.
There's virtually no chance I could either afford to move closer to work, and as my children are at excellent schools and the local healthcare system is very good I wouldn't want to move anyway.
I don't commute out of choice, and I imagine that's true for many people. If you're lucky enough to live close to your workplace then that may not last, as happened for me.
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At the moment MPs get free parking at the House of Commons. Will they have to pay this charge? Sorry only joking, I know the answer.
So charge people to park at work.
People go on bus and sell naughty car.
Car firms grumble cause they ain't selling cars.
Government bring in a new scheme and give people our money to scap car and buy new.
It's stark staring bonkers.
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I pointed out earlier in the thread that "people should move nearer to their work" as suggested would be a very expensive exercise, particularly if you have to change jobs more than once...:-)
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