Richmond at it again

Hot on the heels of their bizarre 'emissions-cutting' scheme that encourages people to drive their cars to work rather than leave them parked at home (an allegedly 'green' scheme that pushes people to concrete over their gardens in order to park their cars off ridiculously over-charged streets) Richmond Council in south London have come up with a new wheeze.

This time the plan to separate the borough's car users from yet more of their cash involves charges for 'drop-off' parking permits at local schools.

And once again they seem set on trying to daub this blatant tax hike as 'green'.

Top charge of £75

At the moment, parents can use a free permit provided by schools allowing them to park on double yellow lines or bays for ten minutes while they deliver or collect their children.

So far, so reasonable.

But the council have announced that, from September, a 'sliding scale' will be used to charge parents for these currently free permits, based on the CO2 emissions produced by their vehicles.

The top charge is reportedly going to be an outrageous £75 for dropping your kids off at school in anything from an average-sized family car upwards.

'Green' paint stripped

While the full details of the sliding scale have not yet been revealed (a bit of standard PR that tries to get the headlines out of the way before the gruesome details are exposed), the council's past form makes it likely that the vast majority of parents driving even the smallest cars will have to fork out extra cash where they don't have to currently.

The council's similar emissions-based scheme for residents' parking permits penalises with greatly increased charges those with cars in tax Band D and upwards.

That includes some models of small city cars like the Mini, Ford Fiesta and Nissan Micra. A very different story beyond the oft-used spin about attacking 'gas-guzzling 4x4s', and one that utterly strips away any claim that the scheme is actually about the environment rather than raising cash yet again from soft-target car users.

Sadly, going by the headlines, "4x4s" are the furthest the spin-vulnerable traditional media ever read into such plans.

Scheme condemned as 'unfair'

The council's plan has been roundly condemned by representatives of parent teacher and car user groups.

Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations has called the scheme "unfair and unrealistic", quite rightly pointing out, "Many families have three or four children, and they need the space to fit child seats that the Government insists on."

And the AA's Paul Watters said: "People carriers are very efficient at getting kids to school, considering many are seven-seaters. It might be a better idea to remove the many smaller cars."

Lib Dem warning

As a Liberal Democrat-run council, Richmond's actions give a worrying indication of what sort of faux-green financial repression car users big and small can expect if the Lib Dems achieve any governing power.

Something for us all to bear in mind with local elections looming and even a general election on the horizon.

But spare a thought for the poor car-using residents of Richmond, who clearly face endless demands on their wallets between now and their next local elections in 2010.

Unless they fight back against blatant rip off tax hikes, even when they are labelled 'green'.

100mph cars to be banned by the EU?

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies (pictured) has revealed himself to be a leading candidate for this blog's Idiot of the Year.

Davies - who last year had to resign as Lib Dem leader in the European Parliament over offensive comments he made in a letter to a Jewish constituent - has evidently been keeping himself busy helping to draft a new EU proposal that calls for a ban on the making of cars capable of more than 101mph, to help cut CO2 emissions.

Only military, emergency and police cars would be exempt from the law, which is being voted on in the European Parliament this month and could come into force in four years' time.

Davies argues that "between 1994 and 2004 the power of new cars went up by 28%, making them a lot heavier, and so increasing the amount of CO2 they put out, even though no country raised its speed limit to allow cars to use this increased power".

Flawed idea

But his idea that cars have only become heavier due to a pursuit of power and top speed have been condemned by many commentators as badly ill-informed.

In fact it's completely the opposite. Cars have mainly got heavier to accommodate compulsory new EU safety features, such as airbags and pedestrian impact zones, and to meet ever more stringent EU occupant safety requirements - measures in which Chris Davies himself has presumably also been involved in implementing.

Consequently, more power is then needed to maintain a heavier car's existing performance, particularly acceleration, and that will inevitably also result in a higher top speed.

So if he's worried about cars getting heavier and emitting more, Davies would do better to look a lot closer to home for the blame.

Second mistake

Beyond his mistake over the root causes of cars becoming more powerful, Davies also gaffes by making a simple link between power and more weight.

Often power outputs are increased merely by altering a car's computer chip, as with the Mini One to Mini Cooper, making no difference to weight whatsoever.

The big question is how does an MEP get to write proposals that could have such serious implications for the car industry, while evidently labouring under such fundamental ignorance?

Davies threatens tens of thousands of jobs

Elsewhere in the proposals, Mr Davies proves himself no friend to tens of thousands of British car industry workers and a major section of British industry, by suggesting that cars emitting double an average 120g/km of CO2 by 2015 should be banned.

That would very likely sound the death knell for major British sports and executive car-makers like Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin, which employ tens of thousands of people in this country and make a huge contribution to our economy.

What has Mr Davies got to say to them? Very little, probably.

Richmond's 'green' parking permit con

Richmond upon Thames in south west London has seen the latest outbreak in efforts to ramp up taxes on the already over-burdened car user citing global warming.

Despite the fact that energy use in homes and businesses is by far the biggest reason for Britain's carbon emissions - and encouraging energy conservation therefore likely to make a far more productive contribution to reducing total emissions - Richmond council has joined the ranks of unimaginative politicians and unjustifiably decided to pick on the car user yet again.

That this idea comes from Richmond council is no surprise when we discover it is controlled by the Liberal Democrats. This is the party that signalled its intention to excessively victimise car users in an absurd car tax policy proposed at their recent conference.

Charges hit more than 'wealthy'

There are so many disturbing features about this latest proposal that it's hard to know where to begin.

First let's deal with the idea that this is a plan to 'make the wealthy pay more' for choosing big, polluting cars. In fact, its implications go far wider. Even best-selling small city cars like the Mini, Ford Fiesta and Nissan Micra are in the Band D set to be hit with a 10% increase in permit charges. That's an increase four times the rate of inflation.

Looking at the next band up, with permits due to cost 30% more under the new regime, even very average family cars like the 1.8 litre Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra appear.

So what exactly do Richmond council expect people to use in order to avoid these excessively increased charges? Or could the intention possibly be just to get their hands on more of people's hard-earned cash and global warming is just a handy excuse?

Because this plan, as it stands, will quite obviously hit not just the wealthy or owners of large cars, but the far larger number trying to get by on average incomes using a wide range of very normal, average cars.

Complicating factors

There are also several complicating factors. For example, the purchase price of all new Land Rovers - the dreaded 'polluting 4x4s' we hear so many complaints about - will from next year include the cost of off-setting three years worth of their carbon emissions.

So, actually, a brand new Land Rover is carbon neutral for its first 45,000 miles and so far better for the environment in that period than any other car. But is Richmond going to inspect the mileages of new Land Rovers and exempt all those showing under 45,000 from their new resident permit charges? They would, if they were really interested in promoting pro-environment action.

What's more, there is some debate about the real fuel economy under everyday conditions of the Toyota Prius, the only car in the council's proposed 50% reduction Band B which isn't too small to be suitable for average family use.

Even if this plan were to be focussed only on larger cars, let's be clear. Owners of 'gas guzzling' cars already pay much more for their choice, by definition. The more fuel a car uses, the more fuel tax is paid. And let's not forget, the government's share of the price of a litre of fuel is more than 70%. Car tax is also now graduated by emissions, meaning they also pay more for that too - far more than is ever spent on maintaining roads.

These are already massive 'green' taxes car users are paying, and have long been paying - the owners of 'gas guzzling' cars more than any. Yet is this massive existing government income already being used to help 'save' the environment? Hardly.

Council hypocrisy

But beyond the transparant real agenda of this plan, it's the blatant hypocrisy of Richmond council that's most galling. They're proposing to hammer thousands of middle income local car users over the cost of parking a car outside their own house (on which they presumably already pay a large slice of Council Tax) spouting solemn lectures about the threat of global warming while, according to the Times report on the proposal, not only maintaining car parking facilities for their own staff but even offering them subsidies.

If the threat of global warming were truly as urgent and action as necessary as they claim, then getting their own house in order is surely a pre-requisite of preaching to others - certainly of being taken seriously and avoiding a backlash come the next election.

It's very hard to avoid the conclusion that this plan is motivated not so much by concern for the environment as, yet again, by a desire to raise revenue from the already over-paying car user, hoping they won't complain if the plan is dressed up in a green banner.

Richmond Council is currently consulting on their plans and wants feedback. You can comment here.

Lib Dem car tax trap

At their conference this week the Lib Dems achieved an impressive double whammy. They revealed a policy to change the car tax system that's flawed in both principle and practice.

First, they claimed the principle of their policy was to make taxes more 'green', presumably meaning they want to use the tax system to discourage what they see as a climate-changing activity like car use. I say 'presumably', because they actually chose as a target the one motoring cost that doesn't vary whether you use your car once a year or all day every day.

Second, in practice, the policy is apparently intended to discourage people from buying the least fuel-efficient and worst polluting cars. But this fell apart when policy-makers employed some usual enviro-blockhead thinking and clearly only assumed that targetting cars based on emissions would result in them punishing drivers of large cars and therefore the wealthy.

Environmentalists or anti-capitalists?

When will it sink in for these people that a car's emissions output has much more to do with the nature of its engine than its external dimensions. That large cars - and certainly not 4x4s, which are only taller than most average family saloons - are not necessarily the worst polluting.

Of course, some so-called environmentalists refuse to see this reality because their only motivation for their anti-car crusade is that they think it provides an opportunity to have a go at the wealthy. A vocal minority masquerading under green banners is clearly not so much pro-environment as anti-enterprise and its conspicuous benefits.

Even the environmentalist movement should be concerned about this vocal 'red' green lunatic fringe, as their unscientific extremism as exemplified by irrational anti-4x4 campaigns only damages the credibility of those trying to make a case for more pragmatic action to improve our environment.

Will realisation dawn?

Perhaps realisation that they have succumbed to the rhetoric of the lunatic fringe will now dawn as the Lib Dems have tried to turn the unscientific enviro-nut outlook into an actual policy, and it's predictably revealed that far more than only drivers of large cars or 4x4s will be hit by their plans.

Their 'Fairer, Simpler, Greener' tax policy paper shows on page 28 that they actually propose not just the much-hyped £2,000 charge in the top tax Band for the worst polluting cars, but also to massively ramp up car tax for cars emitting more than 165 g/km of CO2 - that's those also in current Bands E and F. Here they want to increase the tax from £150 to £850 for Band E, and from £190 to an astonishing £1500 for Band F.

What do the Lib Dems expect us to drive?

To be fair, some mainstream media outlets like The Times have pointed out - but only in passing - that the real effect of the Lib Dem policy would be to punish the drivers of even average size family cars like the Ford Mondeo.

But it's even worse than that. No doubt Lib Dem members will be dismayed that even some Mini models - surely one of the ultimate city cars - are in Band E and buyers would be hit with the £850 annual punishment. As would buyers of Audi's smallest model - the A3 - even in basic 1.6 litre guise, some models in BMW's smallest range - the
1 series - and large swathes of models across the small to mid-size ranges from many major car-makers.

I mean - what exactly do the Lib Dems expect us to drive? Far from an extra tax on the oft-cited 'wealthy' or from discouraging people from buying 'gas guzzlers', this policy will clearly slam many hundreds of thousands of middle income people wishing to drive normal small and family cars like these.

Tens of thousands out of a job

What's more, many of the luxury and sports car manufacturers who make their products in this country such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and TVR would face a severe threat to their businesses and so the jobs of tens of thousands of people they and their suppliers employ through such excessively punitive charges being slapped on the use of their products. Car dealerships will also go bust as rather than buy new cars with punitive tax rates, people will hang on to their old cars for much longer.

What do the Lib Dems have to say about this likely effect of their new policy to the people whose livelihoods depend on Britain's car industry? Ask them.

A quick glance at the car stats in the back of just one of the car magazines found on any newsagents' shelves would have revealed the true repressive effects of this ridiculous policy and killed it stone dead. Clearly such basic fact-checking was expecting too much from the Lib Dems. Will the embarrassment they're now suffering as a result lead to better research and better policies in future?