YES...

Oxford Mail:

Oxfordshire County Council cabinet member for environment David Nimmo Smith.

THE pioneering Oxford Park & Ride strategy has evolved since the 1970s.

In conjunction with parking management, on-road bus prioritisation and service improvements, this has provided a means of tackling traffic congestion on the main routes within the city and on the Oxford ring road by significantly improving access to Oxford city centre.

It is in everyone’s long term interest to reduce the need to drive into the city centre as this will improve the air quality and the street scene for shoppers, workers and visitors.

But funding has to be raised to build and run them.

Our Local Transport Plan 4, currently out for consultation, is suggesting that, like the £1 per day in Nottingham, the funding could be raised by a levy on workplace parking in the city centre. The P&R’s main function and purpose has been to enable transfer to bus for the last leg of the journey into Oxford. This had the effect of reducing the number of people driving into the city centre, and allowing people to walk, cycle or take the bus into the city. The P&R has become hugely successful.

However, the existing P&R sites are now often close to capacity.

For most of them – especially those within the ring road – the congestion has spread to engulf the approaches to the sites. The main element of the new approach to P&R is the proposed development of a network of additional and larger sites located further outside the Oxford ring road, adjacent to the main inter-urban radial routes.

This will tackle problems associated with traffic congestion, by providing funding for local transport, new P&R sites and by acting as an incentive for employers to manage and potentially reduce their workplace parking.

Employers, rather than individual employees, will be responsible for paying any WPL charge. There will, of course, need to be exemptions for, eg, disabled drivers, delivery vehicles and customers.

Should the suggestion come to fruition, this could be a win-win, with increased business activity, more visitors and a cleaner, greener city centre. And the parking places in front of County Hall will play their part.

NO...

Oxford Mail:

Oxfordshire Town Chamber Network director Keith Slater.

AS PART of its review of transport in the county, Oxfordshire County Council has proposed that businesses with on-site parking facilities pay a local tax on them.

It is a proposal with which I cannot agree, even if it is part of a strategy to improve congestion within the city, an objective with which I fully concur.

Business parking spaces are already subject to business rates and so incur a charge of some £100 a year.

The county council’s proposals will increase that to £500, or some £10 per week per place.

Nottingham introduced such a charge some two years ago for businesses with 11 or more places, increasing their costs by some £4,000 per year.

While these sums may seem quite small relative to the cost of parking in a public car park or catching public transport, the imposition of such a charge raised two issues.

Is the objective of the charge to change the habits of the users of these spaces and reduce congestion?

If it is, will it be effective? The answer is no. The spaces will still be there and there is little opportunity to reuse the space.

Having the space will mean that the business will have to pay for it, whether they use it or not.

All that will happen is the business’s costs will increase, or it will ask the user to pay the tax.

Is the objective of the charge to raise money to fund changes to local transport systems that will reduce congestion? If so will it make a significant contribution? Is it fair in its impact?

Yes, it will raise funds, but it will not make much contribution to the amount needed for significant change.

In relation to fairness, why should one small section of business bear the cost?

Particularly when they are not the major generators of the traffic – 50 per cent of journeys into Oxford are by car – which is spread across many more employers and even more retailers attracting customers to their shops.

Finding funding for schemes to tackle congestion is vital to improving things.

But the county council needs to be fairer in who it expects to contribute and more creative in how it might raise the funds.

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