Posted on 01/01/2008 4:08:35 AM PST by Stoat
Motorists face a fresh financial onslaught with rules linking the cost of parking outside their homes to the length of their cars.
Owners of many ordinary family cars - including the Ford Focus, Renault Scenic and Vauxhall Vectra - will see the price of annual permits almost double as part of a move to encourage drivers to switch to small hatchbacks.
Campaigners condemned the move as another 'stealth tax' for hard-hit family motorists already struggling to pay high fuel prices, congestion charges and road duties.
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Owners of many ordinary family cars could see the price of annual permits almost double
The Local Government Association said many other town halls were watching the experiment 'with great interest' with a view to copying the scheme.
A number of town halls are already penalising drivers of 'gas-guzzling' larger cars by linking parking costs to vehicle emissions. But the Norwich scheme marks a change by charging according to the car's dimensions, with vehicles divided into three bands.
Any car longer than 14ft 7in will be in the highest category, with the cost of an annual on-street parking permit rising from the current flat-fee of £16 to £30 - a 90 per cent hike.
For the middle band of cars over 12ft 10in, fees will rise steeply to £22, while all smaller cars will enjoy a price freeze.
Campaigners are angry that the bands place many modest- sized family cars in the same category as the biggest gas-guzzling 4x4s, while ignoring the level of harmful pollution each vehicle produces.
For example some models of the popular Ford Focus are classed as 'large', as are the Ford Mondeo, the Renault Espace and Renault Megane, and the Vauxhall Vectra.
Virtually all estate cars will be hit - regardless of emissions - yet older small hatchbacks with inefficient and dirty engines will still benefit from lower charges.
The VW Golf Estate will cost more to park than the Golf hatchback because it is 13 inches longer - even though its engine emissions are 20 per cent lower.
Some models of the Ford Fiesta - which most would consider a small car - just cross the line into the middle-sized category by a fraction of an inch.
Labour-run Norwich City Council has rubber- stamped the move despite fierce opposition.
The RAC Foundation motoring group said: "This discriminates against families with children, who are more likely to drive longer vehicles like estate cars."
The National Taxpayers' Alliance said: "Saving the planet shouldn't be used as an excuse for new stealth taxes. Ordinary motorists deserve a break."
And traffic enforcement firm NCP said: "What if you drive a Toyota Prius, which is quite a big car, but has very low emissions, or a large electric vehicle? Would you have to pay more too?"
If similar policies are adopted by cities with higher parking charges - such as London boroughs, where it typically costs £100 a year to park outside one's own home - motorists could face huge fee increases.
Norwich council defended the rules. Councillor Brian Morrey admitted the move would lead to a rise in revenue but insisted that was 'not the point' of the plan and the money would be ring-fenced for transport improvements.
He said: "It is a deliberate attempt to push people towards owning smaller cars, which generally have lower emissions but also don't cause such problems with parking.
"Wherever we drew the line some cars were going to fall just the wrong side of it, but after lengthy discussions we decided these sizes were a good compromise."
A spokesman said permits would be issued based on car models using a detailed database of dimensions.
If that is what ch man intended then yes I agree; in fact it’s happening now...perhaps not in an ‘official’ way but in a de-facto way. The muslim birthrate is skyrocketing worldwide (muslim mommies want to make more suicide bomber children, I guess) and the ‘white’ population is plummeting in many areas. Just a few days ago, as an example, the Daily Mail ran a Christmas story about a family that had I think 12 children and it told about how they dealt with holidays with such a large family. Many of the reader comments to this story were highly critical of the family, some viciously so, and the critical ones hinged upon the family’s size and how they were being so very ‘irresponsible’ for having so many children.
What you say fits in with what I’ve been seeing as far as recent trends are concerned, unfortunately.
Also, I would imagine that muslims would be prized immigrants, in the eyes of these Socialists, because in many cases the women are not allowed to drive at all.
Nor mine, even when I give my family's old address Over There.
So it is content, not (just) contempt for the Colonies.
Thank you; just what I suspected :-(
Yeah, unfortunately social sciences (esp. demography, economics, sociology) have been fixated with lowering birth rates since the 1950s. Only very recent did that they start to pay attention to negative birth rate and its consequences.
And yet political fashion still holds sway in the West, despite voluminous evidence that we are intentionally 'underbirthing' ourselves to extinction, or at least to dhimmitude.
I believe that there have been several recent books by Conservative authors touching on these issues, but because they are by Conservative authors they are ignored by the mainstream press who continue to preach abortion and tiny families to white Westerners but bleat "diversity" and "acceptance" of everything when it comes to others
Sometimes called “walled city.”
Atlas Puked...
A few things about having a town car over there, the size of the car would turn many heads, cars are small over there for two reasons, Gas prices and parking. Having said that it would probably take the price of the car to fill it up and you would be lucky to find a parking space on a street long enough to park it, especially if it was a down town area of Norwich.
You vote in socialists and you get taxed and regulated until you are little more than a vassal to the bureaucrats. Nothing surprising here, it’s what the Brits asked for.
One question.
Here in the United States, such a move by a city council would lead to calls for a recall election to remove the council and replace them with office holders who would be expected to reverse the offending policies/laws/etc. We have this power at the state and local level because they are written into the constitutions of these political entities.
Is there a similar provision in English law to remove officials who offend public sensibilities?
(BTW, the recall process is not easy due to the fairly strict processes concerning the collection and validation of signatures needed to place the matter before the voters in a special election. Normally, a slate of replacement candidates is up for election at the same time to ensure continuity of leadership should the recall election succeed. The most notable recent example was the recall of Governor Gray in California and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger (sp), aka “The Terminator.” We do not have this power at the federal level because there is no provision for it in the U.S. Constitution. The only way we can remove a federal office holder is impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate.)
...a move which will raise millions of pounds in extra revenue...
Congestion charges? Road duties? Parking fees? Emissions tax? Length tax? What the heck are congestion charges and road duties anyway?
“Here in the United States, such a move by a city council would lead to calls for a recall election to remove the council and replace them with office holders who would be expected to reverse the offending policies/laws/etc. We have this power at the state and local level because they are written into the constitutions of these political entities.”
Local elections are scheduled - there is no ability to kick out a council once elected by the electorate, you have to wait for the end of their term - however, councils operate in a similar way to our parliament so you may get individual representatives (councillors) kicked out of their roles internally by fellow councilors who can taste the political climate.
Most of the policy initatives though are actually run by non elected council officers - most of our local politicians are idiots (there is no money in local politics) so give a nod and a wink to paid officials ideas as they don’t have the wit to come up with their own. I always find our local government far more ‘soviet’ than the central government (though that may just be where I live).
“They sure would nail my Towncar.”
Another cultural differenceis that these kind of moves are not as unpopular over here as they would be over on your side of the pond. When I tried to mobilise my neighbours to get parking permits for residents where I used to live (rather than having to pay by the hour to park outside my home!) I hit a brick wall. It’s a consequence of the lack of space and population density. Our roads in the major cities were mainly built between 1700-1939. The width is set by the buildings on either side - you can’t go wider without knocking the buildings down. They are therefore about wide enough for horse and carts. Add to that people parking on each side of the street and your residential roads in cities become a nightmare to drive in, and a bigger nightmare to ever park in. You think there are a bunch of people who hate SUVs over there? You have nothing on the bile that is pushed in their direction from over here! However, despite the urge to buy one just to spite a greeny/lefty the reality is that they are stunningly impractical for general use in the UK unless you live in a rural area.
Also - we pay about $1.90 a litre for gas!
You are exactly on the money, my friend. In my lifetime I have seen power and authority pass in larger and larger measures from elected and accountable representatives to ever more anonymous and distanced agencies and entities. As a cowboy friend of mine put it, "The 21st Century is fixing to be a real ornery booger."
damn, my Pontiac coupe is 16' long
If you are parking out in front of your house it is likely on public property. Pay!
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