Will failure of Appeal against WCC bike parking tax lead UK Councils to treat motorbikes more like cars than bicycles?

Post-ruling update: 27.04.11

Bad and potentially good news…

Regrettably, my concerns over weaknesses in the way the case was put against the use of Traffic Act powers to develop a pay-by-phone bike parking tax scheme were well founded.

The Appeal Court decided that the earlier High Court ruling should stand and that WCC had used Traffic Act powers ‘legitimately’, and therefore, any other UK Council can now use those powers and this business blueprint of a scheme to do the same in their part of the country. However, although I still believe that the original ruling was wrong, its being upheld was not a failing of the Appeal Court – and for reasons I suggested in my previous post.

Whatever. Most critically, this judgement effectively says that for now at least, all UK local transport authorities can use Traffic Act powers to  impose new charges for on-street bike parking in order to ‘terminate’ distinctions between cars and motorbikes or scooters.

And although it is far less significant, it is also unfortunate that the decision I took to report my views on all this as in the blog below, without mentioning the NTBPT Campaign group or it’s Chairman Warren Djanogly, who brought the case to court, it has been misconstrued in some quarters as an indication that I undervalue the extraordinary work and efforts made by all concerned with what has been an exceptional single issue campaign.

As a matter of fact, my decision was based purely on a desire to publish a report that could be read by as wide a group of people as possible with the lowest prospect of being dismissed as biased in favour of the NTBPT. And, for the record, whilst I have disagreed with some of the protest tactics and saddened by some of the things said in the course of the campaign, I continue to have great admiration for the courage and tenacity of Chairman Warren – and the extraordinary range of supporters he has inspired to engage in legitimate protest against what I still see as an abuse of powers that are granted to improve conditions for all road users.

The potential good news is that the true legitimacy of the use of such powers may be subject to further examination and with greater focus on the real core issues of principle than they have so far. The latest news from the NTBPT is that a new QC has offered to take the case on to Europe.

Previous post:

A crucial change in the way motorbikes and scooters are seen and may be treated by local authorities in the UK is imminent…

It will be triggered by three Appeal Court judges who will decide whether to overturn a High Court ruling that Westminster City Council used Traffic Act powers lawfully – to impose a new tax for on-street parking of solo motorbikes in bays that were already established for that purpose. That ruling was in my view deeply flawed, as I have said before, but I regret to say now that flaws in the way the appeal case was put, seem likely to allow the Appeal Court Judges to let the previous ruling stand.

My account of proceedings is offered later, but first I think it useful to explain the context and why this issue is far more significant for the future of powered two wheelers (PTW) use in the UK than it may appear on the surface.

The key issue at stake is whether UK councils can or should treat demand for parking these congestion busting machines in similar ways to other single-track vehicles like bicycles, or like motorised twin-track vehicles including cars, vans and trucks.

The issue was brought to a head by a controversial ‘permanent’ pay-by-phone bike parking scheme pioneered by Westminster City Council (WCC) that came into force in January 2010, which imposes new fees or triggers for PCN fines for on-street solo motorcycle parking in bays that were already there and paid for.

But opponents claim, quite rightly in my view, that WCC have used Traffic Management Act powers to introduce a revenue generating scheme that has no real traffic management benefit, and is therefore not a legitimate use of such powers ­– and is just a means to extract a new ‘motoring tax’ from the thousands of scooter and motorbike riders who need to park in central London.

Pros and Cons

In simple terms, some people think that because PTWs have a motor, they should pay to park as car drivers do. Some influential members of the motorcycling lobby broadly agreed with that view when this scheme was first proposed back in 2008, and thought that as it was ‘only a quid or so’, it wasn’t worth fighting over. Others on the UK biking scene were quite drawn by councilor’s promises that the revenues raised would be used to improve amenities for all PTW riders – and to significantly improve on-street bike parking in the centre of town…

Anyway, more importantly now, at least one of the three judges seemed to believe that riders should pay just as car drivers do, and that belief seemed to me to be firmly held from start to finish of the proceedings.

Conversely, others, including me, think that because PTWs are single track vehicles like bicycles, and both modes help users to alleviate congestion problems, but use of all twin tracked vehicles make jams worse, so PTW riders should not pay extra new fees to use tiny allocations of on-street parking bays – on top of road tax and fuel duty that cyclists do not pay – and especially as the solo M/C bays in question here were already established for that purpose.

But the biggest problem arising from plans to treat PTWs more like cars than bicycles as far as parking charge schemes are concerned is far worse than the prospect of an additional cost to park a motorbike or scooter. The pay-by-phone scheme in this case is designed for use by any UK council that might be interested in a new source of cash from riders. But, and this is a crucial but.

In order for local authorities to ‘justify’ the imposition of extra fees and fines for bike parking, they must increase the extent to which they stress negative views of scooters and motorbikes and/or demonise PTW use in the same way they do with cars, vans and trucks.

Appeal Hearing

Basically, after spending two days at the Appeal Court watching the Judges and looking for clues about their reactions to the case before them, I suspect that they will not feel inclined to overrule the previous ruling. Obviously, I hope to be wrong about the outcome but there were, in my opinion, critical weaknesses in the way the case against the ruling was made by the QC acting for the appellant. And, despite my best efforts to persuade the QC to do so, two crucial points were just not made at all.

In essence, the appellant claimed there was no demonstrable traffic management benefit from introducing new fees to park bikes in on-street bays. Conversely, the council claimed there was an “ever increasing demand for motorcycle parking” and that “measures of restraint”, including new charges, could be justified to ‘manage’ that demand. The court then heard that the council had no evidence of ‘ever increasing demand’, and cabinet papers stated that demand for bike parking had not risen prior to the permanent scheme coming into force in January 2010, or since.

Traffic Management Acts require a ‘traffic management benefit’ in order to justify any new fee scheme, and tangible revenue raising through subcontracted services contravenes the Traffic Management and Local Government Acts. So, Traffic Act Orders cannot be lawfully used to impose what is effectively just a new tax. And, as a matter of fact, although it was not mentioned in court, this was especially critical in this case as Westminster council had already built up a ‘surplus’ of around half a million pounds from an experimental version of the scheme, prior to its’ decision to introduce a new ‘permanent’ bike parking fees scheme.

The argument on the first day led to a claim that the council couldn’t use Traffic Act powers lawfully to charge bikers to park in on-street bays. However, one of the judges did not find this argument “attractive”, and seemed to prefer a simpler view; if car drivers have to pay to park on public highways, motorcycle riders should too. This led her to voice an opinion that even though the council’s actions may not have been ‘entirely within the law’, they ‘ought to have the power to charge for on-street bike parking if they wanted to’. In turn, that led to a suggestion that the preceding High Court ruling may have been right as it said that Westminster were entitled to use Traffic Act Orders to “terminate discrimination between cars and motorcycles”.

On the second day, I suggested to the lawyers that the point should be made that comparing motorcycle parking with car parking should be balanced by a comparison with bicycle parking as well. Discrimination is applied to demands for bicycle parking in contrast to car parking, in that drivers pay and cyclists do not. Crucially, the High Court ruled that WCC were entitled to use Traffic Act powers to impose new fees to “terminate” discrimination between PTWs and Cars. But that ruling completely ignores a crucial reason to maintain such discrimination – namely that bicycles contribute less to congestion problems as they are single track vehicles, whereas cars vans and lorries are twin-tracked vehicles. As a matter of fact, PTWs are also single-track vehicles, so there are extremely good reasons to treat them differently to cars, and in similar ways to bicycles. Unfortunately, bicycles were never mentioned during the two days, so that point did not get any consideration.

Another key reason for the permanent scheme to be deemed unlawful was that the entire ‘consultation’ about it was skewed in a way that was made clear in the witness statement I had submitted in the original High Court hearing. Throughout all consultations, the council said that the main reason for a permanent new fees scheme was to pay for improvements to motorcycle parking in the borough. Equally importantly, they said that ‘demand management’ or ‘restraining’ motorcycle use was not a reason for a permanent version of the scheme – and the consultees they told this to included MAG, the BMF and a representative of the Motor Cycle Industry Association in a meeting that I arranged with the Cabinet member responsible at the time in June 2009, and this fact was also mentioned in the statement I submitted to the court.

Crucially, the High Court ruling in June 2010, said that the council had imposed the permanent fees scheme lawfully because the main reason for it was “to improve on-street parking availability for motorcyclists”. But, in fact, when the official ‘reasons’ for the new ‘permanent’ scheme were published, on Thursday 22nd January 2010, and came into force four days later on Monday 25th, there was no mention of any improvements. Instead, the only reason for “small” charges from then on was due to “ever increasing pressure on Westminster’s kerbside space” and “motorcyclists’ increasing use of and demand for these limited resources”.

Put simply, all consultees had been misled by being told the official reasons for the permanent scheme was to pay for improvements, when in the end, at the eleventh hour, it was confirmed in the Statement of Reasons for the new ‘permanent’ scheme that officially, the new fees were only for ‘demand management’.

However, and potentially critically for the outcome of the appeal, that point was not made to the court. Claims that the consultation was skewed were based on an argument that the council said the fees were to manage ever increasing demand for bike parking, but had no evidence to show that demand had increased.

Three Appeal Court judges are now considering the case against a permanent version of bike parking fees scheme that still looks more like a tax to many riders than a measure to manage traffic better.

However, and notwithstanding the strength of the full case against the legitimacy of using Traffic Act powers in the way that WCC did, given the way that case was put in the Court of Appeal, I have serious doubts about whether the High Court ruling will be overturned, and think on balance that it the Appeal will be dismissed. As you may imagine, in this case, I would be absolutely delighted to be wrong.

Mixed future for UK riders… and Sceptics slammed as ‘The Science’ says Reindeer & Sleighs can fly in….. Santa Biker Shocker!

As 201o draws to a close the prospects for those who ride or might choose to ride a motorcycle or scooter in Britain are mixed, so it is impossible to say for sure if things will get better or worse in 2011. But there is a growing consensus in the scientific community that should stop so called ‘Santa Sceptics’ or  ‘Reindeer can fly Deniers’ in their tracks.

First, after issuing a politically correct health warning that a picture at the bottom of my blog may be sexist, I’ll share a two view snapshot of the future for riders and could be riders. On the one hand, as money gets tighter for most people next year in Britain there is an ever greater need for our policy makers to enable those with the skill and courage to ride, to do so as safely and freely as possible. On the other hand, a handful of greedy Burghers in Westminster City Council are hellbent on defending their pay-by-phone bike parking tax on the grounds that it is quite reasonable to use new fees for on-street bike parking to try and put people off riding in the centre of London. And, of course, if they can get away with using Traffic Management Act powers to impose a new source of road user revenue, other councils with far less cash than WCC are sure to be tempted to use their cunning and highly profitable scheme…

But there may be more important things for all riders to consider during Yuletide. One of these is a growing consensus in the world’s scientific community that the so called ‘Santa Sceptics’ or  ‘Reindeer can fly Deniers’ have failed to see or accept an ‘Inconvenient Truth’. ‘The Science’ of such things clearly shows that claims by sceptics and deniers about the Global Warmth that Santa spreads throughout the world at this time of year are wrong. ‘The Science’ now clearly shows how claims that Santa and his Reindeer can’t really fly can not only damage comforting beliefs for innocent children and their parents, but these claims are irresponsibly wrong and create terrible confusion about what can happen to us if we’re naughty not good.

Dr. Larry Silverberg, Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University has been leading pioneering research at the North Pole which confirms the inconvenient truth about Santa flight. “Santa is using technologies that we are not yet able to recreate in our own labs,” and he goes on to explain how Santa’s sleigh is “far more advanced” than any modern form of air transportation.

“The truss of the sleigh, including the runners, are made of a honeycombed titanium alloy that is very lightweight and 10 to 20 times stronger than anything we can make today,” Silverberg says. The truss can also morph, thereby altering its shape  to improve its aerodynamics which allows it to “cut through the air more efficiently”. The runners on the sleigh have ‘flexure’ allows them to ‘tuck in’ and be more aerodynamic during flight, and then spread out to provide stability for landing on various surfaces such as steeply pitched roofs.” Says the world leading scientists.

However, in my ceaseless quest for balance in my bloggings I have to point out that this particular Prof and his disciples may be talking and believing bollocks. Oh Dear! And to offer an alternative theory, in the name of balance again, there are some who reckon that Santa is not transported by reindeer at all – but actually gets round the world on a bike.

Some say he rides in a gang of Santas on turbocharged Honda 90s. Some say he works alone on a supercharged scooter. Some even say that he is a she – and she uses a chopper with super-human aplomb.

As ever, I will leave it to you to decide what you choose to believe. I also hope y’all  have a Cool Yule and Great New Year with those who are happy to ride with you…

Transport Minister Challenged! End of the £140m road for Cycling England…?

I got excited news from a prolific writer about train and bicycle stuff this morning. It came from Christian Wolmar right, who is self-styled as ‘Britain’s leading transport commentator’. We’ve met on various occasions and although I haven’t always agreed with him, I’ve often found his passionately expressed views interesting – and that he is generally quite an an affable chap.

But now he has written an “angry” open letter to Norman Baker, Lib Dem MP left, who is our new Transport Minister responsible for Regional and Local Transport…

It turns out that dear old Wolmar has got his knickers well twisted by rumours that a £140m fund to run a body he is director of, at a cost to the taxpayer that began at £5m and increased to £60m per year, is about to get the chop. The body concerned is called Cycling England and Wolmar asks Norman some searching questions. These include:

What is Norman Baker for? What is the point of you being in the Department of Transport? Then, with no more beating about the bush, our new minister is asked this.

“Are you a fig-leaf for the most reactionary policies to come out of the Marsham Street since the days of Nicholas Ridley?”

Cripes! I thought. That’s quite a question to ask a guy who, whatever you may think of him, at least had the guts to voice serious concerns over the exceptionally odd death of Dr David Kelly – who may have known far too much for his own good about the weapons of mass destruction that ‘justified’ the Iraq war – but weren’t actually there. Anyway, Wolmar also tells Norman that Cycling England is facing the axe “for the crime of being a quango – when it could quite easily not be one”.

In response to all this excitement and rumours of funding cuts, the bicycle industry has quite understandably “raised its voice” in support of Cycling England. But whatever the rights and wrongs of all this may be it is set in a tough situation in Britain where spending cuts amounting to £6.2bn need to be made with £683m to be hacked from the Transport Ministers’ budget.

Now I remember passing the good old cycling proficiency test and would love to see it continue to help youngsters learn how to ride a bicycle safely. But I am left with a number of puzzling questions. First, do we really need to spend £60m of public funds per year to do so? Secondly, is an angry letter from the nations’ ‘leading transport commentator’ likely to encourage a Transport Minister to keep a body like Cycling England safe from the budget slasher’s knife?

To be honest, I have no idea what the answer to the first question is but it does seem odd that the costs of running the quango that runs a proficiency test should grow from £5m to £60m in two or three years.

As to the second question, I will leave you to decide for yourself. But I offer a couple of illustrations to show how wide the gap can be between the opinions of prominent figures who comment about cycling. There can be no doubt that Bojo, London’s larger-than-life Conservative Mayor is a great fan of bicycling. But his fellow Tory peer, Lady Sharples is right at the top of the premier league of Baroness bicycle bashers.

Now, whatever comes of this challenge to save Cycling England and all the worthy work it does, there is one for for sure. There is no need to worry about saving  the future of a government funded body that gets £60m a year to do similar worthy work to promote the training and testing of scooter or motorbike riders. And that’s for the simple reason that such a body is a bit like Blair’s WMD in Iraq, it does not exist.

Nevertheless, concerned as I am about such iniquities, I am not a bicycle basher like the Tory baroness – or in anyway anti-cyclist. Actually, in my humble opinion, cyclists and riders of of motorbikes or scooters have to key things in common. First, we ride single track machines on roads and help cut congestion like no twin tracked vehicles can. And secondly, all single-track machine riders are vulnerable to attack by people in or out of big tin boxes with wheels on – and we deserve as much help and protection as we can get. But going back to dear old Wolmar’s angry letter, I have to say that it never ceases to amaze me how much some fans of cycling will demand – even in times when everyone is facing cuts.

NTBPT Gridlock Central London & Win Round 1 in fight against plans for UK Bike & Scooter Parking Tax as Office of Fair Trading start investigating case against Westminster…

As GMTV warned on their morning news and this slideshow shows, the ‘gathering’ demonstration ride organised by the NTBPT and mentioned in my previous post, did indeed bring traffic to a standstill in central London. You can also see a nice little film of these goings on here. Ironically, these ‘amateur’ protesters took a leaf out of the professionals’ latest book on high-tech road user tax extraction systems – as written by Messrs Gilchrist, Chalkley & Slick-Willy pay-by-phone merchants Verrus – & the ‘gathering’ was triggered by simultaneous multiple text alert. Cripes and gadzooks!

So, within minutes of the text going out, hundreds of peaceful but angered riders suddenly gathered at Trafalgar Square and began riding round it during a lunch time demo.

The most astonishing thing about the event though – apart from the fact that there seems to be nothing that the authorities could do to stop it happening – was to see how incredibly quickly a relatively small number of riders could bring all the roads into and out of Trafalgar Square to a gridlocked halt. As a fellow riders rights champion, BMF Chairman Anna Zee said to me once we’d all arrived at Milbank. “It was incredible to see what a huge impact a relatively small number of riders can have within three minutes of gathering together and starting to ride perfectly legally round a small but critically central roundabout…”

Anyway, once the protesters had made their point of protest about the bike parking tax plan being pushed by Westminster, the riders all moved on in appropriately dignified fashion through Whitehall and Parliament Square and were joined by over a 100 more to rally outside the Tory HQ at Milbank.

A key point for the demo was to encourage the Conservative party leaders and key members to think about the huge damage that one of it’s flagship council’s (Westminster City Council no less) is doing to their reputation by trying to impose a new Stealth Tax on riders of powered two wheelers.

Currently, the word from Tory central office is that they regard this attempt to pioneer an unprecedented extra tax against a key group of vulnerable road users as a ‘Local Matter’. Correspondingly, I have it from the highest levels inside Tory HQ that this unprecedented plan to create a new M/C parking tax and spread it across the UK is something that party leaders are not going to bother about or to consider in a broader context. But I’d add, yet.

In my view, which I have shared with their top transport policy adviser and a couple of Tory MPs who were prepared to listen so far, this could be a very grave mistake unless they think again about a plan to impose an extra new tax on UK riders. Especially as just about all of the million plus motorbike and scooter riders in Britain also just happen to be VOTERS as the RAV campaign is beginning to explain in time for the next election.

It is also crucial for me to point out that it is not just the Tories who are seeming to hide behind the excuse that ‘this is a local issue’ while turning a blind eye to bad or unjustifiable policy decisions to create new revenue streams via ‘motoring’ taxes. After all, the Labour party and Lib Dem central office have also all held back from anything remotely close to condemning this stealth tax for what it is

But sadly, up until now my suggestions and indeed those from others in the motorcycling community have fallen on stony ground. Nevertheless, there is also some very good news for all concerned with treating riders as part of the solution to many congestion problems instead of seeing them just as a target for a bit more ‘motoring’ tax.

I learned late on Friday that the Office of Fair Trading OFT has reconsidered it’s earlier attempt to try and pass the buck for investigation of claims that Westminster have bent or broken rules to ensure trading is done fairly. After a great deal of work on submissions to the OFT by Graham of NTBPT and a couple of tweaks that I added to his latest contact with them their new position looks like this:

“Due to the complexity of the issues you have raised your case has been passed to our Preliminary Investigations Team and has been allocated thirty working days for research and response.”

Well done to all concerned I say – and round 1 to the NTBPT!

One set of rules for riders and another for our rule-makers and enforcers?

I frequently walk by this M/C parking bay, but the scene I saw this week got me thinking about rules. Who makes ‘em, what for – in theory and really – and who has to abide by The Rules and who can get away with flouting them…

The first thing that started me thinking in that direction was the surprise of seeing how full this bay was on a dark cold drizzly night – having approached it from behind the sign. And, I guess I should explain that the bay is usually fairly empty these days, but not because riders in London don’t go out in the cold or at night. In fact this bay used to be rammed full to overflowing pretty much 24/7. But that all stopped when Westminster began their ‘experimental’ scheme to try and force all scooter and motorbike riders to pay a new parking tax – which they did by changing the rules in all of the few M/C bays in the central area of London where the council make the rules. And to keep the picture clear despite the murky photos, bays like this one that were designated for bike parking without risk of fines for ‘illegal’ parking, are inadequately scattered amongst the acres of road space that are covered by parking rules which are to ‘manage traffic’ in theory. But in reality of course, the main reason for these rules is to keep the money flowing in from the Cash Cow that parking enforcement has become.

Anyway, it is also clear from these pictures, and loads more here, that the scallywags who have defaced the new scheme signs have broken some rules in a rebellious effort to invalidate the enforcement of a bike parking tax in that location. And I gather that this particular type of signage customisation/ vandalism is called ‘Rathboning’ as these acts are attributed to a mysterious ‘Captain Rathbone’ – and a loose collection of pirates who keep doing these dastardly deeds. However, as I said before, I am not in a position to condone such rule-breaking for various reasons, not least of which is my concern that such activities could harm the reputation of ‘bikers’ and scooterists in London. But what I can and will say is that these Rathboners are not the only bunch involved with this new riders’ tax who seem to be breaking rules.

I have seen the full range of formalised complaints against the pioneers of this new bike parking tax scheme, and the evidence to back such claims. Most of this has been gathered and submitted by a dedicated few in the NTBPT. But the claims and evidence that triggered an EU Commission investigation has come from very big international players in the parking enforcement business who are very aggrieved by what they claim is very serious rule-breaking indeed. So, from what I’ve seen, I can say that all sorts of rules may well have been bent or broken, in order to get this new tax imposed for the moment on the central streets of London.

But now it seems we’re at a point where reactions to rules and rule-breaking are getting complicated. Having seen the initial rounds of formal responses from the organisations who are supposed to investigate claims about rule breaking and take action to stop it, or chuck out anything that is wrongly achieved by it, it looks like some of them are trying to wriggle out of doing their job. Currently, it would seem that the Office of Fair Trading is suggesting that it would be best if they let the EU Commissioners  investigate complaints that the bike park tax pioneers at WCC may have flouted rules to ensure that trading in Britain is actually fair. Frankly I’m not convinced about that but not being an expert on fair trading laws I’m not qualified to say, but I gather that the NTBPT are in touch with bods who can.

Currently, the OFT are not alone in resisting calls for action. Other official bodies who have been asked to investigate potential rule-breaking behind the scenes by the bike tax pioneers, are also trying to buy some time before getting on with investigations. And, in a way this is understandable as they are run by civil servants in outfits like like the Department of Communities and Local Government and the Audit Commission, where all will be wondering if they’ll still have a job after the next election.

So, for now, it is clear that some rules about defacing signs are being broken on the street by individuals who feel that such actions are their best or perhaps only path left for expressing their views about a new bike parking tax. What is far less clear though is whether those who have made new rules to tax riders have broken even more behind the facade of Westminster City Hall. We will also have to wait and see if the public servants who are responsible for investigating rule breakers do their job as well and fairly as they should. Personally, I very much hope they do in due course. But I will not be holding my breath in the mean time – and will be doing what I can to encourage all concerned to respect the rules that deserve respecting most…

Record depths reached in push to be Britain’s top ‘Robber Baron’ or just a new cut in ‘free’ parking, or could this be good news for bike parking tax opponents?…

I am rarely surprised by the depths that a desperate politician will plunge to, while trying to justify action that stinks. In my experience this often happens when a plan for a government move is being pushed that is nothing more than state backed extortion or highway robbery – and that looks to most law abiding citizens like the acts of a robber baron rather than a servant of the people.

But as you can see by the expression on Cllr Chalkley’s face, even he is struggling to make it look straight as he tries to deny that his council’s latest plan to end ‘free’ parking in London’s West End and throughout Westminster, is just a new way to screw more cash from riders of motorcycles and scooters and motorists.

On the face of it this latest plan by WCC may seem like very bad news. In essence it is to put parking charges up again and end ‘free’ parking on single yellow lines up till midnight!  But I think that there is a huge silver lining to this otherwise very dark cloud, and especially  for all who have been battling with Westminster over their attempts to make an ‘experimental’ M/C parking tax a permanent fixture. More details at NTBPT. The bottom line here for me is that this latest move is already being seen by the majority of people and businesses in the West End as nothing more than a revenue grabbing move that will do a great deal more harm to all concerned than good. In turn, this majority in the heart of the capital will start to see the riders who have taken to the streets to oppose the council’s tax attacks on them less like a nuisance – and more like knights in shinning armour – and no matter whether the steeds they ride are great big motorbikes or nifty scooters.

Another key factor here for me – and IMHO all riders to consider – is that this is NOT A PARTY POLITICAL ISSUE. Westminster are of course a Tory council, but UK councils of every colour including Labour and Lib Dem, have, up until now, followed WCC’s lead in creating ever more sophisticated cash cows for milking motorists in the name of ‘traffic management’ – and supposedly ‘encouraging’ people to walk, cycle or go by privatised ‘public transport’. And, of greatest concern to me, they are also watching with keen interest to see if Westminster can get away with turning all motorcycle and scooter riders into a new source of local revenue by imposing extra road user taxes targeted at them.

Now, back to my views on the latest in Westminster and the pic of Chalkley. My choice of image may seem a tad unfair as this shot may have caught him at a ‘bad’ moment. Even more revealing though (as you can see in the BBC interview linked below) is the long pause as he says “…err…” while composing himself to deliver a statement that looks to me like a bit of a fib! To be frank though, anyone prone to strong feelings about weaselly attempts to justify more tax, under the cover of ecoist faith or ‘traffic management’, may even suggest that what our elected member may be saying about Westminster’s latest plan is a heaving steamer!

Nevertheless, in the sprit of fairness and decency that I try to live and write by, all I can say about whether lies are being told or not is that you will have to make your own mind up. And, you may find this live BBC interview helpful in drawing your own conclusions.

What I will say though is that one of things that troubles me most about this latest plan to end what is commonly described as ‘free’ parking – including by the objectivity seeking BBC – is that PARKING A MOTORCYCLE, SCOOTER OR ANY OTHER PRIVATE MOTOR VEHICLE IS NEVER FREE in Britain. As I and others have said before, all law abiding vehicle owners in the UK pay far more in motoring taxes and duties than most people in the developed world, and vastly more than is ever spent on public highways.

Lastly, I will add that the real reasons why congestion continues to be a great problem in UK towns and cities, and especially Westminster has nothing to do with parking as dear old Danny Chalkley and many others claim. The key causes of ongoing and often worsening congestion is that most local authorities continue cutting the amount of road space that the majority of people are allowed to use. Let battle continue in the fight against robber barons – were ever and who ever they may be and whatever they’re trying to nick, be-it our cash or public highway road space!

Westminster go-ahead for controversial M/C Parking Tax that is set to hit all UK riders – but it also opens doors for serious legal challenges…

So, Westminster City Council (WCC) have finally decided to go-ahead with plans to make their ‘experimental’ and unprecedented pay-by-phone M/C parking tax a permanent measure. The decision by Cllr Danny Chalkley (right) to authorise new Traffic Orders to do this – as recommended by officers led by ‘this is not a revenue stream’ Alistair Gilchrist (left), will take effect on 25th January. Of course this is potentially very bad news for all UK riders as it could trigger a nationwide roll-out of new bike parking charges. If such charges do go nationwide it could cost the motorcycling community a staggering £93,000,000 per year, according to the Tax Payers Alliance who support objectors to what they see as a tax in all but name. But there is some good news. The leading opponents of the move NTBPT say that the WCC decision also opens doors for legal challenges on a number of fronts.

So, although WCC may regard the matter as closed by their decision, this is not the case as far as I am concerned and i am delighted to report that I am far from being alone in that view. And as I’ve reported a few days ago, some scallywags in our midst have been so angered by what they see as a totally unfair and unjustifiable scheme, that they have gone to the extremes of taking the law into their own hands. Within two days of me and other biker bloggers breaking news about this move, many signs explaining how the scheme works at M/C parking bays had been defaced. And, as regular visitors here will know, these shocking acts made the controversial charges technically unenforceable within UK Traffic Act regulations. But the facts as I see them are that the vast majority of protests and objections have been made in legitimate forms and superbly led by the NTBPT and their thousands of supporters who are the focal point for opposition to Westminster’s regressive scheme.

And, although I and others concerned with this nasty rider’s tax must stress that we can’t condone actions that cross the line into any forms of illegal activity, it was cheering to hear NTBPT chairman Warren Djanogly’s initial response to news of the WCC decision, which in his in his generally robust campaigning style was to say to me. “Let battle commence!” Now though, Warren has spoken in more measured tones to identify the basis for further challenges and work to get the charging scheme scrapped. “Cllr Chalkley’s decision to make the scheme permanent has opened a window for us to launch a full legal challenge.” In a nutshell what this means is that NTBPT are now proceeding with legal challenges having already raised the magnificent sum of £30,000 for a ‘fighting fund’ to cover legal costs.

One challenge is in the form of a formal demand for an official Public Inquiry into the legitimacy of the ‘experiment’ on which WCC based their decision to press ahead with the scheme. Other NTBPT challenges have prompted the District Audit Office and the Office of Fair Trading to investigate their claims and outlines of evidence that the council has breached various regulations that govern procurement and tendering procedures for UK local authorities. And, as my news story for MSL magazine highlighted, the EU Commissioners are also investigating what WCC may have been up to that wasn’t quite the way it should have been.

Yesterday I did the decent investigative thing and called WCC to get the latest on what Danny Chalkley had to say about his latest move . As you’d expect, he defended his decision and told me that he ‘understands’ that “charging to park is not popular with some motorcyclists”, but he also claimed that “it is fair and reasonable that motorcyclists, contribute to the cost of improvements and the maintenance of transport infrastructure.” But I have a big problem trying to accept this line of argument. In fact, as far as I can see, Danny has a big problem with it too. After all, as we all know now, thanks to diligent probes and many Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, the facts of life about the money already extracted from rider’s pockets show that this argument is unsustainable to say the least – and complete and utter tosh to be a tad more accurate.

The relentless barrage of  FOI requests forced the council to admit that they have already taken over £2 million from riders during the ‘trial’ of the charges. And even by their well spun calculations, WCC Inc. have already trousered a net surplus of at least £500,000 after all costs of ‘improvements’ and setting up their ultra sophisticated pay-by-phone system have been paid for.

So where are we now? Well, in the course of my attempts to scrape a living from writing about the stuff that bothers UK riders today, I did a round up of what the key players in our rider’s rights groups think and have to say.

What do Rider’s Rights groups and the Motorcycling industry say and call for now?

Updated Friday 15 Jan, 08.45 The first comments on this blog have been about the UK Motorcycle Industry’s position during the course of this campaign and now. In the light of that I have added a link to the MCIA page explaining their position in full and add what I regard as the most pertinent section immediately below and prior to my summary posted last night. I will be talking to the MCIA spokesman for Public Affairs soon,  hopefully today, and will encourage the industry to update it’s position now that WCC have decided to go-ahead with their scheme whilst retaining the ‘demand management’ objective as an official reason to impose new extra charges for the use of motorcycles and scooters in Westminster.

From MCIA Policy statement

“MCI is concerned that the justification for the parking charge may have moved from being one of paying for improved parking service provision for motorcyclists, to one of ‘demand management,’ intended to deter motorcycle use. WCC officials have sought to assure the Association that the basis of the charge is service provision.

However, the current Westminster CC ‘Unitary Development Plan’ (UDP) specifically states that parking charges for motorised vehicles are levied on the basis of ‘demand management’. MCI is opposed to many of the principles of the ‘demand management’ philosophy, as this has often been used as an excuse to discourage powered vehicles and in particular PTWs, and is urging WCC to clarify and resolve this apparent contradiction.”

Back to original summary…

Let’s start with the The Motor Cycle Industry Association (MCIA). And yes I know that there are some riders & campaigners who have been a bit frustrated by a somewhat restrained level of action regarding the M/C parking tax issue so far. But the MCIA position as I understand it is quite clearly that it wants the scheme withdrawn because a key official objective for the charges, in Westminster’s core policy document called the UDP,  is to ‘manage demand’ for M/C bays by introducing ‘fees’ to deter riders from parking and therefore using PTWs on central London streets.

MAG’s General Secretary, Nich Brown, put the debate over bike parking fees into a clear perspective earlier today and offers good advice about what riders can do and says this. “The argument that riders should pay to park on roads operated by local councils, is fundamentally flawed. Riders pay far more in taxes than the benefit they receive when using the roads. Every year the councils raid the money they should be spending to make roads safer for motorcycles by ensuring road repairs last more than five minutes and providing non-slip manhole covers and access to bus lanes.” He then added that “Until all councils ‘think bike’, there can be no question of charging to park on the street.” Nich then suggests that “MAG’s RAV campaign (supported by BMF and MCI) is giving thousands of riders an opportunity to quiz would-be MPs and councillors. ‘Why should I give you my vote?’ is one of the most powerful ways to get what we want.” (http://www.ridersarevoters.org)

Now as far as chairman of the NTBPT Warren Djanogly is concerned he has said this. “Cllor Chalkley’s decision to make the scheme permanent has opened a window for us to launch a full legal challenge. It’s going to be expensive but if just 5,000 bikers contributed £10 each (less than a tank of fuel), we can beat this evil stealth tax.” In response, the BMF has called on all UK motorcyclists to chip in whatever they can. Chris Hodder, the BMF’s Government Relations Executive said. “These parking charges run contrary to the Government’s aim to ‘mainstream’ motorcycling but the only option now available is to overturn the scheme in the courts. If we don’t, this could spell the nationwide end of free parking for motorcycles. Now is the time to stand up and be counted and support the NTBPT fighting fund.” Currently the fund stands at £30,000, but needs at least another £20,000 to meet the expected minimum legal costs of £50,000.

Finally, MAG’s campaigns co-ordinator Paddy Tyson summarises the current situation in a way that I agree with wholeheartedly. “The serious nature of this situation really shouldn’t be underestimated. MAG understands that all local councils are underfunded, but motorcycling is certainly not the resource they should turn to as an extra source of revenue.” He adds. “PTWs can help local authorities actually reduce costs, by reducing congestion and infrastructural damage as well as emissions, so motorcycle and scooter riders shouldn’t be penalised and discouraged. MAG fully supports NTBPT and urges councils around the country not to  adopt a policy which in essence is counter productive.”

Westminster’s top dog Colin Barrow leads Tory Cllrs who want a ‘Magna Carta for localism’ but is this good for the people or good for them?

News is breaking today that top Tory Cllrs are making their final push to get a  ’Magna Carta for localism‘ embedded in the Conservatives pre-election manifesto.

This could be very good news for UK riders in my view but not in a way that Cllr Barrow would like it. It is only fair to assume that many conservative councillors and MPs are in favour of a ‘localist’ emphasis – on the basis that it will help ensure that policy decisions are made in the best interests of people where they have greatest impact – namely at local level. But, and I have to say it’s a very big but in my view, there is often a very big gap between the real motives that politicians have for increasing political power at local level, and the seemingly well meant theories that can reassure us that everything they plan will be as lovely as it can be.

The last time I spoke to Barrow was before an exceptionally well attended full council meeting in which the ‘experimental’ motorbike parking charges/tax scheme was to be reviewed. He told me that his officers (led no doubt by Alastair Gilchrist ‘this is not a revenue raising exercise’ ) said that Westminster had ‘problems’ with meeting demand for bike parking in the borough. I told him that there was a simple solution to all these ‘problems’ and that is to look at what all comparable cities do. Throughout the EU and most of the developed world, local authorities recognise the invaluable positive role that scooters and motorcycles play in modern towns and cities – and do not see riders as a potential target for new taxes. Very sensibly and rightly, most transport authorities outside the UK allow riders to park without extra charges in the abundance of places they can use without causing inconvenience to anyone or cost to the council. Barrow looked nonplussed at my suggestion and could find nothing to say apart from “Oh, I see” Not quite true of course because it was clear to me that neither he nor his officers had bothered looking for ‘solutions’ that didn’t involve creating a new tax.

Now though, in addition to various other challenges ahead for Barrow he may have a new and real problem. His fellow top Tory Councillors and key parliamentarians may start taking a very dim view of his council’s plans to pioneer a brand new local tax – to ‘solve’ a bike parking ‘problem’ that doesn’t exist in any other world city. The real problem for Barrow and us all is that Westminster council has always led the way in screwing all the money they can, from any group of road users they can, in the form of parking ‘management’ and highly profitable privatised enforcement. But if the new Tory Magna Carter ends up being seen as a charter for councillors to impose more localised taxes, and especially on vulnerable road users in the form of PTW riders, it may not seem quite as attractive to the electorate as it’s promoters hope. This latest development of a new ‘Magna Carter’ and controversial measures for enforcement also begs other questions. Not least important of these concerns the way Cllr Barrow will be seen by his fellow politicians and the great British public. Will he be hailed as a ‘people power’ Baron or slide into disfavour as a greedy King John?