UK Authorities Prepare For Workplace Parking Levies

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

30 August 2010

Local governments across the UK have been making preparations for workplace parking levies, despite hopes that the recently elected coalition government would prevent local councils from enforcing such taxes.

The so-called Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) was launched under the previous government on July 31, 2009, by then Transport Minister Sadiq Khan, and was designed to see firms with 11 or more parking spaces being charged up to GBP350 for every parking space they provide for their staff.

It was thought that the election of the Con-Lib coalition in May this year would result in the scheme being scrapped, but an investigation by the Daily Telegraph has found that several councils up and down the country are examining the possibility of introducing a workplace parking levy. These include Bristol, York, Devon, Hampshire, Leeds, Bournemouth, South Somerset and Wiltshire. Nottingham city council has already confirmed that it will roll out the WPL, as described by Khan last year, in 2012.

Initially conceived as a means to alleviate congestion and reduce carbon emissions, evidence now points to the scheme being viewed as an extra funds source for cash-squeezed authorities.

"It is the wrong tax in the wrong place at the wrong time," David Frost, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, told the Telegraph. "This is the worst possible time for it to be introduced as we are trying to get businesses to grow all over the country."

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