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Gas-guzzlers face £300 bill for parking permits
Last updated at 10:22am on 25.10.06
Parking permits in Richmond, London, are set to cost 4x4 owners dear
A London council is to charge motorists for parking in the street according to how much pollution their car emits.
Owners of 4x4s and other cars with high emissions in Richmond could see costs of permits rise from £100 to a £300 a year for one car and £450 for a second - making it a total of £750 if a family has two gas-guzzlers.
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Greedy council costs taxpayers thousands in parking fine farce
Cars in the middle of the polluting range will qualify for a 50 per cent discount. At the other end of the scale, the owner of an electric-powered vehicle will pay nothing.
Richmond currently charges residents £45, £75 or £100 depending in which part of the borough they live. The new charges are set to come in early next year.
The Lib-Dem council is the first in the country to charge according to emissions to encourage motorists to "go green". It says Richmond is one of the worst polluted boroughs in London
because of the high number of "gas guzzlers". A spokesman for Richmond council today encouraged other local authorities to do the same.
The council expects the move to enrage many motorists and it was condemned by the AA which said drivers are already penalised through the graduated road tax if they drive bigger cars.
It means that Richmond residents owning higher polluting vehicles such as a BMW X5 4.8 litre, Range Rover 4.4 or a Jaguar X Type 2.0 will see charges rise in some instances from £100 to £300.
If families have a second such car then charges for this will increase by another 50 per cent - escalating the cost of a resident's parking permit for the second car to £450. Those owning vehicles which have the lowest CO2 emissions - such as a Honda Insight electric hybrid or a Smart diesel - will park for nothing.
Other less polluting cars, including the Toyota Prius 1.5 hybrid, Peugeot 107 1.0 and the Honda Civic petrol/electric will be charged 50 per cent less than current rates.
Serge Lourie, the borough leader, said he expects a row when the higher charges come up for ratification before the council's ruling cabinet next month. He 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. "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."
Mr Lourie continued: "I am under no illusions that there will be strongly held views on both sides of the argument - this is no easy win."
Paul Watters, director of the AA's Motoring Trust, said; "There will be an outcry over this - it just looks like a reason to put the prices up.
"People are not going to like this at all. In a way the size of the car for parking is irrelevant - when it is parked it is not emitting any emissions at all."
Reader views (17)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I trust that the Mayor of Richmond will be leading from the front and swapping the gas guzzling Mayorial Jag for something greener. Me thinks not somehow.
- Richard Walters, London, UK
Yes, Ben from where on earth in England is that.....Brussels? For the second time of posting, I respectfully suggested that Motoring envy, like its brother, the Politics of envy, has a nasty whiff about it. Okay with that?
- Ted, Shetland
I am refugee camp engineer who lives in London.
I own a Subaru 4x4 because I attend equipment trials etc in the country and have used my own car in several disaster responses, increasing my productivity.
My neighbour, in her Nissan Micra, emits VASTLY more CO2 because she uses her car VASTLY more than I do for school runs, work and shopping.
Should I own two cars?
Charging for a parked car, emitting nothing, is simply stupid and sends totally the wrong message.
Any environmental tax should be linked solely to usage, when CO2 is actually emitted, and thus be petroleum or mileage based.
- David Lorraine, London
Great - business class travel. Those that can afford 50k cars can pay the tax, and will look forward to emptier roads. I'm not sure that thats the intention, but that will be the result. The same'll happen with the extended congestion charge - Chelsea tractors live in Chelsea, and will be eligible for a 90% discount - currently that would be 80p per day!
- Harry, London
Well done Richmond. Predictable responses, which can be answered as follows:
Paul Ebhart, well yes but experience shows that these things are owned by people for whom a tank of petrol is pocket money, so only a big hit in the pocket will make them notice (and not much then, I suspect, but at least the money can be sued for something useful).
Steve Parker, nice try, good theory but in practice how many 4x4 do you see with more than 3 people in them, let alone 6? And there are plenty of practical 7 seaters which take up less road space.
Mr Watters of the AA, the size of the car is not irrelevant, these things take up far more road space. And I've noticed a strange correlation: the bigger the car, the greater propensity to double-park. AA shouldn't take sides between different road users, I suggest.
Steve Ritchie. In France they have had anti 4x4 demonstrations in Paris and the mayor wants to refuse to regsiter them for Parisian residents.
Nobby Clark, I think even the most inefficient local authority can make money administering a system if each payment is 300 quid. And it's basically the system they are already administering with the price higher for some - so in terms of covering admin costs, it's an improvement.
Any more?
- Ben, Brussels, Belgium
I say that it's not fair that electric cars don't need to pay anything. I mean they should have to pay at least £5 or £10 for the amount of electricty they use for their batteries. And if too many people buy electric cars we won't have enough electricty for our socail needs. I know they're eco friendly, but what's the point of having an enviorment if we don't have enogh power to run it properly?
- Cameron Christopher Kerr Age 8, UK
To James Ritchie - The residents of Richmond aren't as apathetic and spineless as you seem to suggest. We did do something this year. In May we kicked out the Conservatives who had been running the borough for 4 years and elected the Lib Dems in a landslide. And I for one am very happy that some politicians are finally standing up and being counted on such a serious issue as pollution on our streets and climate change.
- Tom, Richmond, Surrey
£300 is way too low. The selfish drivers of these monstrous vehicles should be charged £3,000 a year - I'm sure that will make some of them stop and think about their choice of a car that is both polluting and a danger to young children. And tell James Ritchie that the residents have already voted for this council and heartily approve of measures such as this (however weak they may be)
- Nick Moreno, London, UK
Isn't Richmond out in the countryside, after all they having deer roaming wild, so obviously they need big 4 wheel drives, with 'Roo' of 'Deer' bars to protect them?
- Alfie, London, UK
Excellent proposal - it is about time action was taken to get these rich, gas guzzling polluters to remove their heads from the ground and face up to the problems they are causing. It might also get them off their fat bottoms and realise they actually still have legs which can move them around
The fee should escalate by 20% each year until a real saving in pollutants is made
- Andrew Black, ricmond england
This not so much a tax on owning a high-CO2 car, rather a tax on owning a house or flat with no off-street parking in a road where a Residents' Parking Zone is in operation. The owners of such homes will probably find that when they come to sell the price is depressed somewhat. Conversely houses and flats with off-street parking will look more attractive to potential buyers.
Reducing CO2 is a good aim. But which produces more - a car left parked all day because the owner has taken PT to work, or one that is being driven?
- Tony Bryer, Twickenham, UK
What amazes me is that Richmond already has one of the highest council taxes in London but the residents do nothing to get these leaches of ftheir backs? Chuck the parasites out, cut the waste and cut council taxes! Sadly England is now populated by apathetic spineless voters who do nothing. This could only happen here, in France they would riot and in the US they would vote the bums out! Pronto!
- James Ritchie, London, UK.
Good. Why do you need a big gas guzzler in a city that is so well resourced you could almost manage without a car at all, least of all an antisocial 4x4?
- Howard, Bristol
Why doesn't Richmond council just give all the money that it is spending on setting up this daft scheme to the Carbon Trust instead? I bet they are spending more to set it up and administer it than they will actually receive in tax.
- Nobby Clark, London, UK
About time too I say. I live in Twickenham in the LB of Richmond upon Thames. Most of the streets here are narrow and there is very little off street parking and no garages in my area. The 4x4 take up unwarranted amounts of space and many never leave the area. There is no need at all for 4x4s round here, we have good transport links. They are purely an alternative status symbol to a BMW for a husband who commutes but has a car allowance to use up. Banning them certainly gets my vote.
- Hazel Jackson, Twickenham
One factor that seems to be being ignored is the number of people carried by each car. A people carrier or large 4x4 that has seven or eight seats effectively causes less pollution per person than a small low emission vehicle.
If only six seats are regularly used in the big car and it does 25 mpg, the equivalent number of two seaters - ie three of them - would have to do 75mpg each to create a similar amount of pollution overall. Of course while they are doing this the two seaters are taking up three times as much roadspace and contributing to traffic congestion which makes all cars stuck in the jams cause more pollution.
One person using a four seat saloon at 45mpg is much more wasteful than six using an MPV at 25mpg.
It would be fair to charge for cars with seat numbers that matched the number of people in the household at a basic rate and then have higher rates for extra cars or cars with unecessarily high CO2 emissions for the number of people carried.
- Steve Parker, Leeds, England
It isn't ownership that causes polution, but use. However the council are powerless to tax use, so they're going to tax ownership. Clearly, they've seen a nice little earner and anyone who thinks the price won't go up when the council needs to fund its pension scheme is a fool.
And no doubt, in a couple of years, they'll be complaining that there's a lack of water as a result of 'tax-avoiders' concreting over their front gardens.
- Paul Ebhart, Guildford
