Responding to the Campaign Against Leicester's Workplace Parking Levy

We support Leicester City Council’s proposal to introduce a workplace parking levy (WPL): a charge on employers who provide parking spaces for their employees. There is a detailed explanation of why we support this on Climate Action’s website. We know that there is now a campaign against the introduction of a WPL in Leicester and we would like to respond to some of the arguments being put forward.

“The WPL will have a disproportionate impact on the lowest paid workers”

The most economically disadvantaged people in Leicester (employed or not) suffer the most from low quality public transport and unhealthy levels of air pollution. 35% of households in the city do not have access to a car. Many, if not the majority, of people in those households will be reliant on public transport to get around. At the moment, many of the bus services are infrequent and poorly co-ordinated and all are too expensive. The number of bus passengers in Leicester has been declining for years as a result. This situation leaves already disadvantaged people further disadvantaged by the limited transport available to them.  

It is now well known that people who are economically disadvantaged are the most exposed to air pollution. This is all the more unfair because the same people are less likely to own a vehicle and be contributing to the pollution. They are also more likely to have existing health conditions that will be exacerbated by breathing polluted air. This spiral of inequality is visible in Leicester, for example, with the St Matthew’s housing estate being next to the congested ring road. Introducing clean (electric) buses, with more connected, more frequent services, would benefit people without access to a car and people living in polluted areas the most. It would finally address the current, doubly unfair situation.

As the WPL is levied on employers, they can choose whether to pass it on to their employees and how to do so. The City Council have said they would work with employers to ensure the charge is passed on fairly. The University of Nottingham’s scale of charges provide an example of how this can be done. This would need monitoring, of course, and any employers not using a scale of charges to protect their lowest paid employees would need to be challenged. But that could be done and, overall, the scheme promises to benefit the people who are struggling the most by improving the transport they rely on.

“The number of buses will reduce”

We contacted the City Council about this claim, to understand it better. Bus operators’ fleets in Leicester are currently artificially high, because they include vehicles for contract work outside Leicester. The competition between operators also means that we often see empty buses driving around. For example, I live on the route of the 22 in Evington and it is not unusual to see a First bus and a Centrebus pull up at stops at the same time or within a few minutes of each other. Inevitably, the second vehicle is then mostly empty. This pointless competition between operators adds to pollution and congestion in the city. The new Bus Partnership Plan promises to reduce competition between the operators, as well as improving the frequency of services and the connections between them.

One of the Council’s priorities with the revenue that could be generated by the WPL is to fund a new orbital bus service (i.e., a service that goes round the city rather than from the outskirts into the centre). This would run within 400 metres of 75% of the employers in the city. For people without cars, it would significantly increase their access to jobs and services. The electric buses will also cut the pollution caused by public transport. But this plan needs funding and the money provided by central government will not be enough. We need the WPL to fund better bus services.

“We need system-changing socialist solutions”

and “municipal ownership is better than commercial ownership”

We completely agree that bringing public transport back into public hands is the best way to provide an excellent bus service. And to give credit where it is due, Peter Soulsby has consistently said this too. But it isn’t going to happen with a Conservative government. It isn’t guaranteed even if we get a Labour government at the next election; they were in power for 12 years last time without fixing the public transport system. And we haven’t got time to wait for a revolution before we start acting on climate change. The latest IPCC report made it very clear that action is needed now to avert climate disaster. India is currently dealing with a heatwave that has been made 30 times more likely by the climate crisis. There are more severe heatwaves every year in countries where very few people have access to air-conditioning. There are more floods, more fires, more droughts. Left unchecked, it is only a matter of time before climate change starts killing people on a scale that we cannot bear to imagine. We need to start moving towards a more sustainable way of life now, even if the first steps are not perfect. In Leicester, a sensible next step would be to improve the bus service and start to encourage people to consider leaving their cars at home.