Just the ticket or parking mad?
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Last week’s Newsletter about plans to tax cheap air travel out of existence prompted a big response from readers both for and against the idea.
Well, another week another environmental tax, only this time the focus of the debate is closer to home – right outside your front door, in fact.
The London Borough of Richmond has unveiled plans to make residents pay more for their parking permits if they drive a vehicle with high CO2 emissions.
Under the proposals tiny electric cars would be free. Drive a Jaguar X-Type, or for that matter a Renault Espace, and you can expect a bill of £300 to park on the street compared to the £100 you pay now.
That assumes of course that the Lib Dem-sponsored plan is accepted, and for those of us who don’t live in Richmond the temptation is surely to shrug our shoulders.
Don’t imagine for a moment, however, that if Richmond begins raking in the revenue then authorities up and down the UK won’t start drawing up their own plans. There is nothing local government likes more than the chance to raise extra cash.
Like last week’s example of airline tickets, this is another move towards what will become a significant trend over the next few years – the direct linkage of taxation with the environmental credentials of technology, in this case cars.
The stated aim of the Richmond proposals is, of course, to encourage people to purchase ‘cleaner’ vehicles by rewarding them if they do and punishing them if they don’t.
Is this the right approach? It’s difficult to tell, and the jury would be out for the best part of 10 years when it would become clearer whether the people of Richmond were trading down in emissions terms when they renewed their cars.
In the meantime, here’s a couple of observations.
Firstly, in the land of the parking permit, the private driveway is king. Expect the builders of south-west London to raise a glass to the council as they prepare to concrete over front gardens by the score.
Secondly, what happens if it works? If the people of Richmond really do start abandoning their Jags and switching to Smarts, the cash cow would soon run dry, and the borough would have to find a new charge to make ends meet.
Andrew Lee
Editor
The Engineer & The Engineer Online
Readers' comments (8)
Geoff Jones - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 10:52 am
The people of Richmond have the ultimate veto, via the polling booth.
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Terry Bannister - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 10:54 am
The total amount of CO2 you generate depends on your mileage - not where you park your car. I think it reasonable to make you pay more for parking if your car takes up more room, but not if it uses more fuel. Anyway, it’s not using fuel all the time it’s parked! If you have a gas guzzler, then you will pay proportionally more for your fuel and hence contribute more to the government’s coffers on a mile by mile basis. Surely this is where the funds to combat pollution should come from?
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Vanessa - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 11:57 am
Parking mad!
People may change their voting habits, but not their driving habits because of the new charge. It makes no sense.
This is purely a money-making scheme, and has no benefit to the environment at all. What will Richmond Council do with the extra money generated, plant more trees? Or invest in finding cleaner fuel and engines?
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John Hampton - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 11:59 am
I think we're confusing a desire to save the planet with raising cash. If this ploy doesn't get accepted or people start buying Smart cars then the council will just find another method of taxation. I don't mind the taxation as much as the bull.
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Brian - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 12:56 pm
If the government was serious about saving C02 emissions then it would have allowed the Rover K Series engine to be sold at a lean burn rate that it was capable of. If I remember the ratios correctly, the engine was sold at a 14 to 1 ratio (air to fuel) and could be run at about 26 to 1. The reason given, at a lecture I attended, was that the government would loose out on too much taxation!
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Simon Wilkinson - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 1:33 pm
I'm not concerned with which political party takes action just as long as the action is taken.
So from my point of view it's got to be a step in the right direction. At the moment the vast majority of people in this country will not consider the environment until it starts to eat away at their hard earned.
And to be honest, the possibilities for engineers to develop evermore efficient vehicles are endless,
Let’s face it, anybody can produce a gas guzzler!
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Shaun Frayne - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 2:08 pm
.....and of course concreting over front gardens adds to the destruction of the environment, wild spaces for birds and small animals and rapid run-off of water into drainage systems causing floods etc...etc...
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Neil - Just the ticket or parking mad? | 27 Oct 2006 2:19 pm
When will these frustrated MP wannabe's realise that manipulating the taxation system almost always has an unexpected, undesirable outcome? Do they want to drive the wealth out of their borough, out of London, out of the UK? Do they really believe that people with money and sense will drive plastic bodied electric cars? That families will travel in Smarts? Of course not, their sole, selfish motivation is making a political name for themselves.
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