Croydon’s Labour-run Council is planning to increase the cost of parking permits, hitting hardest our elderly and low-income residents.
They’re introducing an emissions test for your parking permit that could mean the cost increases to £300 per year.
Instead of £80 for your permit, regular cars will see an increase to £104, £149 or £300 and any vehicle older than 2001 will automatically be charged £300.
Parking ticket prices will also increase with every vehicle other than fully electric only cars paying more with a 30% increase in charges and anyone wanting to pay cash at a parking meter or having a vehicle older than 2001 paying 30% more as well. Plug-in hybrids will pay the same as most petrol cars and all but the most polluting gas guzzlers.
This policy will be a tax that penalises the elderly and low-income residents who can't afford to buy a new vehicle and is a Croydon Car Tax on small businesses that rely on their vehicles to trade.
Labour's own report says residents in controlled parking areas will be badly impacted by the plans – but they’re going ahead with it anyway. Those on low incomes and the elderly who are most likely to have older cars will be unfairly hit by this regressive tax and small business will be targeted at a time when new business needs all the help it can get to rejuvenate our town.
If you want to collect signatures for a petition in your road against these proposals, then email [email protected].
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
