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Plans to give councils the power to levy a tax on workplace car parking spaces have been backed by MSPs.
It means councils can charge businesses an annual fee for every parking space they provide for workers. And business will be expected to pass on the charge to their staff.
The move was welcomed by environmental groups but it is being criticised as another tax on already hard-pressed workers.
What’s your view?
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over 5 years agoOnly makes sense if these councils are forced to invest the money in improving public transport links.
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over 5 years agoUtter nonsense, more and more people are on the breadline and public transport is not exactly the greatest. Cycling 10 miles to work is not an option at 7 in the morning while wearing your shirt,tie and trousers. To some people a car is not a luxury but a requirement to earn a wage.
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over 5 years agoThis all seems based on the assumption that we all live close to public transport routes and work in the city centre. Very sly of the Government to introduce the legislation but push the responsibility for adopting and implementing onto cash strapped Local Authorities. The money raised will not be sufficient to make any real difference to public transport. Disgraceful policy.
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over 5 years agoThere is some misunderstanding and misrepresentation of this legislation. It gives local authorities the power to charge employers for their parking spaces, if they want to. It is up to the local authority to decide if this approach is suitable for their area. A Council can also choose to operate it in certain parts of its area. It is then up to employers to decide how to pay this charge. There is no obligation on the employer to pass this cost on to its employees. For large employers the amount will be negligible compared to its overall costs. There is no obligation to pass this cost on to staff, as your article suggests. Employers don’t pass on the cost of rent, power, phones, rates etc to their staff why should they pass this cost on?
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over 5 years agoWe shouldn't be penalised again for working. When the public transport system exists to commute to work then I would happily use it. Public transport needs to reflect the change in working life, 24/7 for many.
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over 5 years agoThis is a scandal. Are people not observing all of the charges that are applying to folk who work and are still on the breadline? There is little enough in the way of getting to work and having to operate on very low wages without making it harder for people to get to work. It equates to a tax again. If they must do this, why not do it to those who earn over £100k pa? And don't have special 'Directors spaces' that are kept for particular people who will afford this tax, and likely have a wage rise to pay for it. Further to this, do companies not pay rates on the land where they have this space anyway? So why are the council thinking of double charging on land that is already incorporated into someone else's payments? It is wrong anyway. Nowadays we operate many different shift patterns - some of which are outwith public transport hours, and we are at the mercy of transport providers to service people with clean, safe, reliable and efficient transport ( who are profit making enterprises anyway - so sending poorly paid workers to pay and provide profits for private companies, otherwise pay tax to the Council??? ) We already have a completely incompetent body of people who are meant to be running the Towns and Cities that they are charged with. Not sitting around a table trying to figure out ways to squeeze money out of the least able to pay. They can save money by reducing the amounts tax payers are made to pay to the large Council pensions, redundancies, pay offs and other such perks that other working people have been forced to contribute to without having the same privileges afforded to themselves as the payers of such lucrative benefits. These people are shameful and shameless. Bring them down to minimum wage and see how they fare. And on the point of minimum wage - how utterly disgusting that a council tries to big itself up by saying it pays a 'living wage' What is that saying - that they are better than average by paying a bit more than a wage that should never ever be paid in this country to people? And the living wage is a joke - it is not a living wage - it is still a scraping by wage with no room for any loosely called luxuries after working a full week every week year in year out. And they want to make things harder again. We are not living in a fair and equable society at all - and these people supposed to be in charge are getting away with financial suppression of workers
