EXCLUSIVE: Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on the Tory Mayor’s latest back-door proposals to increase charges on the borough’s motorists, and businesses

Hidden in the small print of the volumes of reports and papers going to tonight’s council cabinet meeting being held at the Town Hall is a brief, almost throwaway, paragraph that shows that the borough’s Conservative Mayor, Jason Perry, wants to introduce new charges for Croydon employers who provide car parking spaces for their staff.

If the anti-pollution, green proposals are introduced, Croydon employees could face hundreds of pounds in charges each year, just for parking their cars at work.

Paragraph 4.11 of tonight’s cabinet report “Recommendations arising from Scrutiny”, from a streets and environment scrutiny sub-committee meeting, states: “The sub-committee were encouraged that the council would be exploring the possible adoption of Workplace Parking Levies (WPL) and asked to be kept informed of this work as it developed.”

A Workplace Parking Levy, or WPL for acronym fetishists, is a charge on employers who provide workplace parking, a type of congestion charging scheme.

In black and white: proposals presented to the council’s scrutiny committee reveal that Perry’s council is looking at workplace parking charges

The legislation to allow such charges has been in place for almost a quarter of a century, and was brought in at the same time that London got its first Congestion Charge zone at the turn of the century. The WPL charge is levied on employers with 11 or more parking spaces. The employers can choose to pay it themselves or pass the cost on to employees.

By law, any revenue has to be spent on improving transport to increase options for commuters.

WPLs are another form of car charging intended to reduce the use of private vehicles, and get more people walking, cycling or using public transport to travel to work, reducing congestion on our roads and toxic pollution in our atmosphere.

Hypocrite: Jason Perry

The hypocrisy of Croydon’s car-loving Mayor, Jason Perry, considering such a money-making move,while at around the same time he was campaigning alongside Tory London mayoral candidate Susan Hall, spreading disinformation about ULEZ expansion and making wild claims about non-existent pay-per-mile proposals, will not be lost on the council’s opposition Labour and, especially, Green councillors.

While the possibility of WPLs have been on the statute book since 2000, few local authorities have implemented them. Until now.

Leicester, Reading, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford and, in London, Hounslow and Camden have all been reported as looking at WPL schemes of their own, whether across the whole authority, or in parts of their area. They are all seeking ways of improving air quality and meeting emissions targets, while raising money to invest in sustainable transport projects.

To date, Nottingham is the only city in the country to have introduced a WPL. Nottingham’s rate is £415 per parking space per year, which in the 10 years since it was introduced in 2012 has generated around £90million, unlocking another £600million of other transport investments. Nottingham has managed to build two tram line extensions with the money raised through WPL.

In London, a WPL scheme can be established by Transport for London, or a borough or by one or more boroughs working together. “A WPL scheme and road user charging scheme, eg. Congestion Charge or Ultra Low or Low Emission Zone, can overlap,” TfL explains.

A council operating a WPL “may levy a charge on the occupier of premises (typically the employer) for the number of places they provide that are occupied by employers, employees, agents, suppliers, business customers, business visitors, students and pupils parking there in the course of their business or education”.

But TfL clarifies that “Non-commercial customer parking places are not subject to WPL licensing or charging.”

Tram lines: Nottingham City Council has invested levy revenues into two tram extensions

And they explain: “The employer is normally liable for paying the licence charge (and any penalty charges arising from the WPL…) if the parking places are provided by the employer, whether on or off-site.

“There is the opportunity for any individual employer to choose to pass on the charge to those who commute by car in a way that suits them.” Which is nice…

According to LocalGov.co.uk, Nottingham’s WPL is “widely regarded as one of the UK’s most successful green transport interventions”.

Nottingham City Council’s modelling found that 70% of traffic at peak periods came from people commuting to work, and this work-related traffic congestion was estimated to cost £170million per year in lost economic growth.

“Despite the usual predictions of economic doom, and threats of an exodus of companies and jobs… none of these warnings came to anything,” LocalGov.co.uk reported.

“Within the first five years of the WPL, Nottingham saw a 22.2% boost in the number of businesses opening up in the city, with a real-term job increase of 23,400 and a 44.8% fall in unemployment.”

And workplace parking charges have delivered real dividends for Nottingham. “WPL has funded two new tram lines and an extra 17.5km of track,” LocalGov.co.uk says.

“And Nottingham [railway] station has been transformed into a 21st-century integrated transport hub, supporting routes on the Link Bus Network.”

Read more: MP calls on Met to investigate Tories’ ‘vile cesspit’ groups
Read more: Perry should apologise for anti-ULEZ Facebook group says MP
Read more: Perry slow to stop cars parking in town centre pedestrian zone
Read more: Ignore ULEZ scare stories – it will reduce traffic and save lives

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