Commuters will pay for parking at work to avoid public transport

A survey of UK car commuters has revealed four out of five would rather pay to use their companies’ car parks than travel to work on public transport.

Motorpoint, the UK’s leading car supermarket group, carried out the survey in the run up to a potentially pivotal local authority vote this month (18 December) in Nottingham, the first city in Britain actively to pursue a workplace parking levy as an alternative to congestion charging. The Nottingham scheme could introduce an annual levy of £185 per workplace parking space in 2010 – set to rise to £350 by 2014.

What some might see as a shocking condemnation of the state of the public transport system will delight supporters of the workplace parking levy concept since a key component of the scheme is that all money raised is meant to be ring-fenced for spending on improvements to public transport.

David Shelton, Motorpoint’s managing director, commented: “Many of our customers buy their cars with travel to work in mind as a major use. One reason for that is they believe buses, trains and trams are not providing an acceptable alternative for a number of reasons. This survey demonstrates that, unless this poor perception of public transport changes, our customers are going to be left without a real choice and may be forced into paying an unwanted tax where these workplace parking levy schemes are introduced.”

The power to set up workplace parking levy schemes has been on the statute books since 2000. The Department for Transport offers significant grant funding from its Transport Innovation Fund to local authorities that produce charging proposals. Despite this incentive few authorities have developed schemes for fear of a hostile response from voters.