IN A local election pledge from Edinburgh council leader Adam McVey he announced, that if the SNP were returned to power at the local elections on May 5, they would charge commuting drivers on entering the city. They would also introduce the contentious Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) on some of the capital’s largest companies, the only UK city outside of Nottingham to introduce such a scheme.

As part of the SNP/Greens ongoing war against the motorist, Mr McVey, Edinburgh’s very own Dick Turpin, said that the city’s 200 biggest companies with over 50 car parking spaces would be charged around £500 a year per space, which he conservatively expects to raise around £10million annually for the city. He hopes to put in measures to ensure the charge is not passed from employers to employees. Something that hasn’t happened in Nottingham.

A congestion charge, which could be anything from £8-£15, is to be brought in to reduce peak time traffic and encourage more workers to use public transport. It will only apply to non-resident commuters and visitors. All monies raised would be re-invested to improve regional public transport systems, including park and ride facilities and better public and active transport options. Another way of saying they’re putting the cart before the horse, which at this rate might become the only affordable way to travel.

We shouldn’t forget, even though Mr McVey has, that in 2005 the residents of Edinburgh voted in a one-off local referendum against the introduction of a congestion charge. More than 73% of the 290,000 residents who took part in the online poll rejected the council plans. A decision which Labour's Donald Anderson, the then leader of Edinburgh City Council, fully respected, saying: "The idea is now dead and buried.”

The disgruntled Edinburghers made their feelings very clear, and unanimously voted No. Yet less than a generation later, that democratic decision is now being denied and the policy exhumed by an SNP council and government, who have form when it comes to referendums, replaced with a cynical green policy which is more about fleecing the motorist out of their hard-earned green than saving the planet.

The highway robbery doesn’t stop there though because Edinburgh, in line with other Scottish cities, will soon be introducing punishing LEZ (Low Emission Zones).

Rushed and ill-considered Scottish Government legislation aimed at driving down inner-city air pollution which will only end up driving swathes of visitors away from our inner cities.

Motorists, whose vehicles fail to comply with these stringent rules, will be hit with a penalty charge of £60, doubling with each subsequent breach. Light goods vehicles, buses, taxis, HGVs will also be hammered with crippling fines, which for coaches and HGVs could top £960, which will force many off the road at a crucial time when we need more buses and delivery vehicles, not less.

A recent Edinburgh council traffic survey found that a whopping 16,000 diesel cars, 24 per cent of lorries, 40 per cent of coaches and 52 per cent of vans would fail to comply with proposed LEZ rules. Frightening figures which will no doubt double in the sprawling half empty, austerity-hit metropolis of Glasgow.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is against a workplace parking tax and congestion charging. He says: “The SNP government is not making the investment necessary to build our public transport system. Instead, they are increasing the cost of commuting and at the same time threatening to charge people to park at work. This is the wrong approach, especially in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis when people are already struggling to make ends meet”.

The wacky race to become the greenest of green nations and achieving net zero at any cost must be brought to a juddering halt.

At the moment that virtuous accolade is the very least of most people’s worries, and this car crash package of anti-car measures, will only heap further pressure on thousands of people already struggling to hold a job down, feed their families, heat their homes, and fill their tank.

Pricing people out of using their cars to get to work while not having a robust and reliable public transport network in place is a dead end stop on any roadmap to recovery and should be immediately by-passed.

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