Leicester City Council - Workplace Parking Levy in Leicester

[davieG]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/workplace-parking-levy-leicester-shameless-6546717

 

Workplace Parking Levy in Leicester a ‘shameless attack on workers'
'It penalises the people who have given the most through the pandemic'

ByHannah RichardsonLocal Democracy Reporter
14:04, 26 JAN 2022UPDATED14:22, 26 JAN 2022

Councillor Porter has spoken out against the proposal to tax work car parking spaces in the city (Image: Getty)
 

Plans to introduce a parking 'tax' for workers across the whole of Leicester have been slammed by a city politician.

 

Leader of the opposition Councillor Nigel Porter launched a petition this week opposing Labour-runLeicester City Council’s plans to introduce a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL).

The levy could see businesses with more than 10 parking spaces charged £550 per space, with businesses able to pass the charges on to their employees.

 

Coun Porter, who is a Liberal Democrat and one of just two city councillors who are not Labour, said the WPL could negatively impact not just city centre business, but hospital workers, care home staff, teachers, paid charity workers and businesses across the wider Leicester area.

In his online petition, he called the proposal "nothing more than a shameless attack on the wages of all the hardworking people of Leicester".

Coun Porter, who is the city councillor for Leicester's Abbey Ward, told LeicestershireLive he launched the petition to raise awareness of the scope of the proposed scheme.

He said: “I think a lot of people are completely unaware, they think it’s just a plan for the city centre.

“The thing that concerns me especially is the people who are shift workers in hospitals and care homes and places like that who are really dependent on their car, because of the hours they work.

“And there’s no way on Earth that the council are going to be able to provide buses for these individual journeys.

“It penalises the people who have given the most through the pandemic.

“Obviously with the current cost of living crisis, people have got huge gas bills, electricity bills, council tax is going up, inflation is running at almost 7 per cent. I think the last thing people need is another tax.”

Council documents suggest there would be a 50 per cent discount for NHS workers if the scheme were to go ahead, but only for the first three years. Police and fire service staff, unpaid volunteers and blue badge holders could be exempt.

Charges would also be expected to rise yearly in line with inflation.

The city council is running a public consultation enabling people to have their say on the proposed charges. It closes on Sunday, March 13.

Deputy city mayor for environment and transport Councillor Adam Clarke said that while he knew the plan "will not be universally popular", the possible benefits of a WPL were "difficult to ignore".

"It’s clear it that would play a major role in helping to finance the improvements that will be vital to meet both the transport needs of a growing city and our environmental obligations as we face a climate emergency and more challenging air quality targets," he said.

"Reducing the amount of traffic in the city is a key element of that.

“Of course, people need to know there’s a reliable, convenient public transport system available across the whole city if they are to be persuaded to leave their cars at home, and the money raised by a [WPL] would enable us to make huge steps forward in delivering that over the coming years."

Coun Clarke added that the council had been working on the scheme with Nottingham City Council, which has had its own workplace parking levy in place for almost 10 years.

However, Coun Porter said he was concerned that the Nottingham model would not be suitable in Leicester.

“The way the council has described it, they say it’s going to be like Nottingham,” he said, “but in Nottingham, it’s only in the city centre, whereas the Leicester scheme is the whole boundary of Leicester.

“It works well in Nottingham because it has a proper tram system, but there’s no ambition for anything like that [in Leicester]

“It’s just electric buses and improving the railway station. Both of which are going to be done anyway, with or without this scheme.”

The Government would have to grant approval for the scheme before it could be implemented.

 

Consultation - https://consultations.leicester.gov.uk/sec/wpl/

[Finnegan]

It's easy to be angry at the council on a superficial level but moves like this are an inevitable byproduct of Tory austerity and the increasing cuts to local authorities, particularly urban Labour authorities, over the last few administrations. 

 

Less money from central government either means massive cuts to services or a new way of finding revenue (or usually both.)

 

Edited 26 January 2022 by Finnegan

[Innovindil]

25 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

It's easy to be angry at the council on a superficial level but moves like this are an inevitable byproduct of Tory austerity and the increasing cuts to local authorities, particularly urban Labour authorities, over the last few administrations. 

 

Less money from central government either means massive cuts to services or a new way of finding revenue (or usually both.)

 

Surely if that was the reason, this would be common practice throughout the country. Iirc councils have had the power to do this for 20 years, yet only Nottingham do it? Doesn't add up. 

 

It's yet another shite Leicester Labour idea and they need to own it. 

 

For me to get a bus to work in the morning it would take about an hour and a half. If any even run that early in the morning. They can **** right off tbh. 

[kenny]

17 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Surely if that was the reason, this would be common practice throughout the country. Iirc councils have had the power to do this for 20 years, yet only Nottingham do it? Doesn't add up. 

 

It's yet another shite Leicester Labour idea and they need to own it. 

 

For me to get a bus to work in the morning it would take about an hour and a half. If any even run that early in the morning. They can **** right off tbh. 

It would be cheaper to set up new companies and each one take 9 spaces each.

[Bellend Sebastian]

The comments on the Leicester Mercury website are going to be off the scale

[dsr-burnley]

Perhaps they could run a trial scheme that applies only to people who work for the council.  Then if it's popular, extend it. 

[orangecity23]

I would humbly suggest, since Councillor Clarke thinks public transport is the answer for all of us plebs, that perhaps he should be the first to trial all this stuff, which would have the added bonus of keeping him off the roads which should be the case as he seems to think car tax and MOTs don't apply to him:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/city-transport-chief-councillor-adam-4463411

 

If his "solutions" are so wonderful, then why is he driving a car around the city? Some animals are more equal than others I guess.

[Livid]

I’m not against it principle but there is one enormous BUT……
 

I actually don’t drive into Nottingham anymore. I go to Clifton and use the the tram park and ride. I think the tram system Nottingham has is superb. I can go to Rock City and get back home in Coalville quicker that going to De Mont or the O2 in Leicester. 
 

Leicester isn’t even going to get remotely close to matching what Nottingham has. I work just outside the city centre on the opposite side of the city to that where I live. 
 

No trains from Coalville, Buses that go seem to divert halfway around the county to cover for the cuts to services that have happened for years. Park and Ride into the city then a twenty minute walk to work, on day’s like yesterday no thanks. 
 

I’ll have to bite the bullet but I’ll be damned if I come into Leicester for anything other than work and sport. 
 

Soulsby and his cronies are living in dreamland if they think this is going to do anything for Leicester other than bulk up the council coffers by milking those of us with little alternative but to pay up. 

[Leicester_Loyal]

We need train stations opening again, we're forced to drive if you live on the outskirts of the city as buses either don't run, aren't reliable or take way too long.

 

Other cities (like Nottingham) are so far ahead of us, trams, better train links, much better public transport, so many more options.

[orangecity23]

Our trains are pretty poor, it baffles me that the train between Leicester and Birmingham is just 2 locomtive cars coupled together with no carriages. I like to joke that if a "train" is defined as 2 or more things coupled together, then it is literally only the very minimum a train could be, any smaller and you couldn't even call it a train any more. That train is always rammed, there is no extra capacity to use there.

 

Soulsby and his workplace levy have got big ideas for trains though - they are going to move the entrance to the train station to the side road instead of London road. Genius, because that was what was stopping us all using it, it wasn't the timetable, the lack of stations to travel to, the lack of capacity or the high prices, no, we were all standing by the Royal Mail office looking confused because we couldn't get in and are desperate to spend lots of time sitting in a pissy cafe built in the old drop off area instead of, you know, using it to go to places.

[SpacedX]

19 minutes ago, Livid said:

I’m not against it principle but there is one enormous BUT……
 

I actually don’t drive into Nottingham anymore. I go to Clifton and use the the tram park and ride. I think the tram system Nottingham has is superb. I can go to Rock City and get back home in Coalville quicker that going to De Mont or the O2 in Leicester. 
 

Leicester isn’t even going to get remotely close to matching what Nottingham has. I work just outside the city centre on the opposite side of the city to that where I live. 
 

No trains from Coalville, Buses that go seem to divert halfway around the county to cover for the cuts to services that have happened for years. Park and Ride into the city then a twenty minute walk to work, on day’s like yesterday no thanks. 
 

I’ll have to bite the bullet but I’ll be damned if I come into Leicester for anything other than work and sport. 
 

Soulsby and his cronies are living in dreamland if they think this is going to do anything for Leicester other than bulk up the council coffers by milking those of us with little alternative but to pay up. 

I do think that Nottingham is a far better city to Leicester and as you say, the tram system is excellent. However, there's a reason that it was identified as the most congested city in Europe last December - and this is, the lack of bridges over the Trent. Coming up on the train to get to the NTU Clifton campus recently, I was planning to get off at Beeston and walk the short distance from the station (just over a kilometer. That is, until I remembered that there is no crossing over the Trent. You'd have to walk up river to Clifton bridge and back again on the other side which is around three miles. The alternative is to travel into Nottingham station and come all the way back on the tram or the three miles on the bus which in heavy traffic can take up to 40 minutes. You can't drive there, because there's barely any parking. 

[Livid]

57 minutes ago, Line-X said:

I do think that Nottingham is a far better city to Leicester and as you say, the tram system is excellent. However, there's a reason that it was identified as the most congested city in Europe last December - and this is, the lack of bridges over the Trent. Coming up on the train to get to the NTU Clifton campus recently, I was planning to get off at Beeston and walk the short distance from the station (just over a kilometer. That is, until I remembered that there is no crossing over the Trent. You'd have to walk up river to Clifton bridge and back again on the other side which is around three miles. The alternative is to travel into Nottingham station and come all the way back on the tram or the three miles on the bus which in heavy traffic can take up to 40 minutes. You can't drive there, because there's barely any parking. 

Agreed on the bridges.
 

 I have a friend at work who lives on the east of Nottingham, North of the river. His easiest way to get to work in Leicester is to drive into Nottingham cross a bridge and drive back out to the A46. 
 

What parking there is, is extortionate as well. 

 

Much as I loathe Forest,  as a City Nottingham is light years ahead of Leicester.