Michael Edwards

The BBC have today decided to highlight Nottingham’s plans for a Workplace Parking Levy, following a reaffirmation of our intention to proceed at yesterday’s full council.   

Labour were joined by the Lib Dems in supporting the scheme.  The Tories were against the proposal with one young Turk who idolises Thatcher telling Labour that we don’t care about people who want to work for a living.  Go figure.   

The BBC have found people to complain about a levy, but not sought people who get no compensation of choosing to live near work and walk, or choosing to cycle or choosing to arrive by bus or train or tram.   

The Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Chamber of Commerce have suggested road user charging would be better for Nottingham, but when Derby proposed charging there, the same group opposed it.   This morning, they repeated calls for alternatives to be explored, despite it being the Council’s policy since 2000 and a public inquiry having been held. 

And they and the Nottingham Evening Post (who’ve also called for road user charging) were in hiding when an initial study for the costs of a scheme for Nottingham was produced with an early indication of the charges needed. 

Road user charging has been right for Ken’s London, but Nottingham could not sustain such charges around the whole city in isolation of a national scheme.   

Then they say it’s not a scheme to relieve congestion, much as they soon say we shouldn’t just charge without providing a public transport alternative.  The levy will enable Nottingham to expand its success tram, to offer a higher quality public transport alternative to the very congested routes into Nottingham on the A52, A6005 & A453.  (And one is needed despite the highly rated TrentBarton services along the A52).   

The levy will also enable improvements to Nottingham’s Midland station and allow us to make the very successful network of “Link” buses serving hospitals, workplaces and neighbourhoods; such services that can’t be sustained  

The levy will also encourage firms to go further in their transport planning.   

Overall, the scheme could reduce volumes of traffic on the road by 10%.  A 5% reduction during school holidays already has a dramatic effect.   

Which leads me to main pitch made yesterday – that we’re anti-motorists.  This is always a strange one cos most of the Councillors own and drive cars. 

But the gist is that we’re the only city – outside of Ken’s London – who kept economic activity growing (still the 5^th best on GVA and we increased the economic activity of Nott’m people by 3% in the last year alone) whilst limiting growth in traffic.  So we’ve kept travelling time down for motorists and we’re still accused of being anti-car.   

Nottingham’s radical policies on transport and land use planning have worked. 

But we cannot stand still.  Car ownership will continue to grow.  As will the real increase of the cost of fuel.  As may a planning imperative to reduce greenhouse emissions from transport (yes, the Cameron Tories didn’t mention the environment once yesterday).    (And last year, one of their study groups advocated workplace parking levy.)

We need act to sustain the viability of our city.