Needed – a sense of reality

A sense of reality needs to be attached to the potential cancellation of a national road pricing scheme, warns the BVRLA. “Early indications of a possible U-turn on road pricing by national government may be less of a retreat and more a tactical withdrawal,” says John Lewis, BVRLA Director General. “It would appear that the government is hastily removing itself from the front line of a new tax in the form of national road pricing, a new tax which would have been softened a little for motorists by corresponding reductions in fuel and Vehicle Excise Duty. By doing so, this canny government retains the mainstream income from these taxes while leaving the door open for local authorities to raise incremental revenue through their own individual road charging schemes.

“This would leave motorists facing the pain of a plethora of local charges,” says Lewis, “And without the reductions in tax they would otherwise have enjoyed. It can hardly be unnoticed that this increase in local taxes, if unhypothecated, neatly allows national government to bolster local authority incomes without use of central funds and thereby, at no cost to itself.

“This proposal is riddled with ambiguities and difficulties for local and national authorities alike including organisations such as the Highways Agency. How, for example, would local schemes with a major trunk road running through it, work? The local authority is responsible only for building and maintaining local road while the Highways Agency deals with the trunk routes.

“And that leaves aside the whole question of the interoperability of local charging systems. In the limited number of schemes already in operation no two are identical. And if you were to travel around the M25, for instance how on earth could that work with at least seven counties and a much larger number of London Boroughs all claiming their piece of the action? There could be dozens of local schemes collecting money from national traffic.

The BVRLA believes that such local schemes will merely heap an extra burden on already over-taxed motorists who despite contributing some £45 billion to the Chancellors’ coffers now stand to make further contributions to any local authority in the country who chooses to tax traffic in its area.