Radical proposal for Leicester workplace parking levy to cut congestion and pollution

[davieG]

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby planning a consultation on taxing firms' parking spaces to fund public transport

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ByDan MartinPolitics Reporter
09:06, 20 MAR 2019

Radical plans to charge Leicester employers a workplace parking levy have been proposed.

Sir Peter Soulsby says he is keen on the idea of taxing company parking spaces as a means of trying to reduce congestion and traffic pollution.

The city mayor said money raised by the levy would be entirely re-invested in measures to boost public transport in the city.

Sir Peter Soulsby wants to consult on bringing in a levy on work car parking spaces
He confirmed he was considering the idea after a number of Labour councillors said they were surprised to see the controversial measure in a draft of the party’s manifesto for May’s mayoral and city council elections.

Sir Peter confirmed to LeicestershireLive that he was looking at a model similar Nottingham which was the first city in the UK to bring in a workplace parking levy (WPL) in 2012.

While other cities are also considering schemes, only Nottingham has so far introduced a levy.

 
He said: “We intend to consult on a workplace parking levy.

“We recognise there may be people who have concerns about what it might mean for those who would want to invest in the city and those who would have to pay it.

“At this stage our commitment is consult and find out what everybody thinks of the idea.

“I am very keen that we should look at this.”

The idea proved massively controversial in Nottingham where it has generated more than £53 million since it was implemented.

That cash has been used to fund the city’s tram network but Sir Peter has indicated revenue raised in Leicester would be used to improve buses.

The mayor said many of the key details of a Leicester WPL would only be confirmed after a consultation which he said could begin ‘very quickly’ should he be returned for a third term leading Leicester City Council on May 2.

 

Key questions
But there are key questions that will need to be addressed.

 

How much will it the charge be and how much will it raise?
Sir Peter said early calculations suggested between £5 million and £7 million a year would be raised on Leicester.

He said this was calculated based on the Nottingham charge of £415 per space per year.

 

What would the money be used for?
Sir Peter said: “Every penny will be used to improve public transport. We do not have and will not have a tram as Nottingham has but that revenue could be very valuable to improve bus services and create a comprehensive cross city network

“It could be used to subsidise services, fund new routes on top of those that only serve the main roads at the moment.

“We could have more frequent off peak buses?”

 

Who would have to pay it?
The mayor said he was looking at following Nottingham’s lead where businesses that own 11 or more spaces would be liable for the levy,

He added: “There may be some exemptions such as the hospitals and schools.

“We would have to decide that.

“I think if we are asking other people to pay it they would almost certainly expect the city council to pay it too.

“Some small and medium enterprises with just a handful of parking spaces could be exempted.”

 

Which parts of Leicester would be covered by a WPL?
The area inside the Inner Ring Road would seem the initial earliest choice said Sir Peter.

He added: “That is not to say the area could not be wider than that.

“Again this is something that we would have to seek views on during the consultation.”

Will it the additional cost not lead to job losses or scare off investors and deter other companies from setting up in Leicester?
“The experience in Nottingham is that it has not prevented investment or led to job losses.

“We will listen very carefully to what potential investors say about this.”

 

When could the levy come into force?
Nottingham’s scheme took some five years to introduce and get Government approval for but Sir Peter told LeicestershireLive he was confident the consultation and implementation in Leicester could be completed within a a four year mayoral term.

What do other politicians have to say?
Green Party mayoral candidate Mags Lewis had already said a workplace parking levy as the central plank of her campaign with the revenue to be used to improve bus services.

Conservative city councillor Ross Grant said: “This sounds like a very appealing idea at election time where the mayor says he will tax businesses and give everyone cheap public transport but I am very sceptical.

“Will he not just end up handing over huge sums of money to private bus companies who he cannot compel to do anything.

“This could end up with companies deciding Leicester is not where they want to base themselves because of the additional cost.”

 
One Labour councillor, who did not wish to be named, said: “We’ve all been putting in ideas for the manifesto for a while.

“I don’t think anyone mentioned this but then it appeared in a draft of the manifesto and everyone’s like ‘what the heck?’

“Businesses are going to hate this.”

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/revealed-radical-proposal-leicester-workplace-2663502

[Stadt]

Flogging a dead horse trying to improve the bus services. The 3 mile journey From St Margarets to County hall is £2.90, I bought a train ticket from Leeds to Sheffield for £2.95 the other day. Obviously the operating costs are very different and the like but arriva are poor value when ever I've used their buses and their usage is decreasing generally. Can't we sub-nationalise the bus network?

[yorkie1999]

So the idea  in the grand scheme of things is to eventually replace traffic commuting into leicester with an improved bus service and the calculations are based on £7 million quid raised by charging  £415 per car, that makes a minimum of 16800 people per day or a maximum of 67000 per day if everyone had 3 passengers. That's a serious amount of buses.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I work in Nottingham, this scheme does nothing to help traffic flow, improve congestion and isn't reducing pollution outside of the immediate city centre. 

[wurmer]

He's a lunatic.

 

Simple.

[Smudge]

I don't follow the logic, If the same number of parking spaces are available, how will it reduce traffic?

[yorkie1999]

1 hour ago, Smudge said:

I don't follow the logic, If the same number of parking spaces are available, how will it reduce traffic?

There isn't any logic as it requires workplace parking to remain full in order to create funding. They'll just be empty buses, rich bus companies and more traffic jams because of the additional buses.

[VLC86]

3 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

I work in Nottingham, this scheme does nothing to help traffic flow, improve congestion and isn't reducing pollution outside of the immediate city centre. 

I used to work there and I agree. Plus other businesses just outside the centre then start to tag along with this and charge a fortune.

[hairy]

So he is going to remove £7m from the pockets of the people of Leicester. So thats £7m less for them to spend. That's not going to help an ailing city centre economy

[jammie82uk]

How’s he going to improve buses when they are operated by private companies? Or Does he mean we are going to get even more bus lanes which obviously will come with money making 24 hours camera monitoring   

[LestaAl]

I also worked in Nottingham for many years and was involved with a company that absorbed the cost of the levy for several years before passing it on to the staff!. I also worked in another business with a Transport consultancy dept so have  some knowledge of the issues.

 

In reality for many commuters in the city it does not appear to have had much affect but the fact is its contributed to the development of the tram system which is still far from complete after many years. However it will have reduced congestion to a degree along with the extensively used park and ride schemes that operates in that  city together with various other initiatives.

 

The other consideration regarding congestion is it causes a reduction in the quality of air we breath. This is slowly killing many of us earlier than we wish but because we do not notice many of us are not really that bothered.

 

The problem is there are simply too many people who want to come into town in their car but the costs are now proving difficult to justify on a macro level and this proposal is a way of dealing with the issue.

 

The issue with these and similar proposals is they always charge companies/commuters money before the infrastructure to benefit everyone is in place and quite reasonably people object  but you have to start somewhere.

 

All big cities will have to follow this sort of proposal at some point in the future . Some will implement a good arrangement and others will fail. I have  little understanding about the detail regarding the proposal in Leicester but sadly commuters will end up having to pay for  whatever is agreed either directly or indirectly at some point.

[davieG]

9 minutes ago, LestaAl said:

I also worked in Nottingham for many years and was involved with a company that absorbed the cost of the levy for several years before passing it on to the staff!. I also worked in another business with a Transport consultancy dept so have  some knowledge of the issues.

 

In reality for many commuters in the city it does not appear to have had much affect but the fact is its contributed to the development of the tram system which is still far from complete after many years. However it will have reduced congestion to a degree along with the extensively used park and ride schemes that operates in that  city together with various other initiatives.

 

The other consideration regarding congestion is it causes a reduction in the quality of air we breath. This is slowly killing many of us earlier than we wish but because we do not notice many of us are not really that bothered.

 

The problem is there are simply too many people who want to come into town in their car but the costs are now proving difficult to justify on a macro level and this proposal is a way of dealing with the issue.

 

The issue with these and similar proposals is they always charge companies/commuters money before the infrastructure to benefit everyone is in place and quite reasonably people object  but you have to start somewhere.

 

All big cities will have to follow this sort of proposal at some point in the future . Some will implement a good arrangement and others will fail. I have  little understanding about the detail regarding the proposal in Leicester but sadly commuters will end up having to pay for  whatever is agreed either directly or indirectly at some point.

The difference is NCC have a big influence over the transport through their 80% ownership where as the Leicester bus companies are totally private. All we'll end up doing is giving £s to them so they can then make bigger profits and pay themselves bigger. The current set up is useless so throwing more of the of the publics money at it is not going to work.

[Grebfromgrebland]

Looks like yet another nifty way to get tax payers money's into the hands of large corporations to provide a service as long as it makes them money. 

[Bellend Sebastian]

Bearing in mind Leicester has some of the poorest air quality outside of the capital, I think it's probably more about things like this than the financial conspiracy being suggested by those commenting on the story on the Mercury website:

 

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2018/smd/study-of-2000-children-suggests-london-air-pollution-is-restricting-lung-development.html

 

 

[yorkie1999]

43 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Bearing in mind Leicester has some of the poorest air quality outside of the capital, I think it's probably more about things like this than the financial conspiracy being suggested by those commenting on the story on the Mercury website:

 

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2018/smd/study-of-2000-children-suggests-london-air-pollution-is-restricting-lung-development.html

 

 

Maybe so, but the point is that, charging people who work in Leicester to park in Leicester will not affect the air quality because in order to replace dirty cars with buses etc, the necessary funding will be coming from charging owners of those cars. If everyone decided to stop parking in Leicester tomorrow, there would be no money raised and no need for extra buses because all the business would move out and it will become like Coalville. On the other hand, everyone will just pay the charge and there would be the same amount of cars as there is now but with loads of additional buses that will be contributing to the air pollution as well as causing more traffic jams, slowing the flow of traffic and further increasing air pollution.

[Jattdogg]

Sounds like a $hit plan to me. If traffic is that bad the only way around it is to ban vehicles into town and only allow buses/ light rail. Its only going to get worse with more cars etc.  You cant really make lanes wider for more volume. Something has got to give.

 

Better ideas are needed for the long term and i dont think i have the answers as there as smarter engineers out there who should be able to figure this out.  Having said that congestion will always be there. If you remove traffic you just push the problem further out.

 

Our ways of thinking about commuting especially in 2019 need to change.  Perhaps Working from home should be mandated for most people who can do so these days.  The days of going into the office are no longer needed.

[Bobby Hundreds]

What businesses should be doing is getting more people to work from home. Commuting isn't always that necessary for a huge number of businesses.

[Langston]

I don't actually think Leicester's rush hour traffic is even that bad really is it? I've worked in Leicester city centre, currently in Nottingham's – and it's a different world of it.