Workplace parking charges scheme may set precedent for drivers across the country

Telegraph
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:56am GMT 15/11/2006

Millions of motorists who drive to work are facing having to pay for the right to use their office or factory car park.
Nottingham city council is due to become the first authority in the country to introduce a workplace parking levy in a move that is being watched closely by local authorities elsewhere in the country.
Its initial draft for the scheme suggested that each space would be subject to an annual £184 fee at February 2005 prices. This figure could rise during the following decade.

The idea of treating an employer-provided parking space as a taxable benefit has been considered by the Treasury, but until now the Government has shied away from producing a national scheme.
Earlier this year the Treasury rejected a Daily Telegraph request, submitted under the Freedom of Information Act, to see what work it had done on workplace parking.
It did, however, confirm that officials had examined the idea but it refused to release the files because it related to the "formulation or development of government policy".
The Nottingham initiative suggests that the workplace parking levy could be introduced in a piecemeal fashion by councils elsewhere, a move that would not only match local circumstances but spare the Government the political unpopularity of a national scheme.
The Local Government Association confirmed that it was following closely the progress of the scheme.