Parking charges in Bath could soon go up by 10p an hour, with bikers set to be charged too for the first time.
Proposals set to go out for consultation in May would increase the baseline hourly charge of council car parks in Bath, where prices are based on vehicle emissions, by 10p an hour in October 2024 and October 2025.
The bands for more polluting vehicles will be calculated from the new baseline, a 2.5% increase for each polluting band, or 5% for each band based on engine capacity.
Motorbikes would also have to start paying to park in the city under the proposals, something that was previously free.
Bath & North East Somerset Council’s cabinet member for highways, Manda Rigby (Bathwick, Liberal Democrat), told a council scrutiny panel on Thursday 21st March: “Increasingly motorbikes are of a size where they take up a full bay or a full space, so we are looking to charge them as well.”
These charges will also be based on emissions, but the proposed bandings have promoted fears that a small 50cc moped charged as much to park as an old car.
Pay and display machines look up a vehicle’s emissions from the DVLA and charge based on how much carbon is emitted or, if this information is not available, the capacity of the engine.
Under the proposals, a motorbike of under 151cc would be charged as much as a car under 1550cc.
But Shaun Hughes (Midsomer Norton North, Independent), a keen motorcyclist with seven motorbikes, warned this could be unfair.
He said: “If we’ve got a young lad got himself a 125 scooter or even a 50cc scooter to get to Bath because he’s going to Bath College, he’s got his first job, or he’s got an apprenticeship, am I right in saying he’s going to have to pay potentially £15 a day to park — £300 a month?”
Ms Rigby said that it was a suggestion of what could be charged if there was no emissions data on the DVLA system.
But she added: “We are going out to a consultation that says are we looking at this in the right way? Should we be charging motorbikes, and if so how should we be charging them?”
The consultation will also cover proposals to roll out emissions-based charging to all council-managed paid-for parking locations, including on-street parking in Bath and the currently free car parks in Midsomer Norton and Radstock, but not the park and rides.
Ms Rigby said the idea behind emissions-based parking is that “the polluter pays”.
She said: “Air pollution from traffic remains a — possibly, in some cases, the — major contributor to air quality, and that has a huge impact on the health of people, particularly vulnerable people.”
Emissions-based parking was introduced in Bath in September 2023.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
