Parking charge increases for more polluting cars have officially been approved in Reading.
The council has been devising a scheme to charge drivers of more polluting cars more to park in the town.
The increased fees cover on-street and off-street council car parks and residential parking permits.
The charges are scaled based on the pollutants cars emit.
While it will cost £1.20 for a Ford Focus driver to park for an hour in an outer tariff area, a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG driver would have to pay £3.40, the highest amount.
Meanwhile, all vehicles with emissions under 151 g/km will pay the existing rate, which is £1 to park for an hour in an outer tariff area.
The change was made at a Reading Borough Council policy committee meeting.
Councillors from the Labour administration argued that introducing increased charges is part of a suite of policies designed to tackle climate change.
John Ennis (Labour, Southcote), lead councillor for climate strategy and transport, said: “At the end of the day, it’s all about air quality, that’s what it’s about.
“If you walk along the Oxford Road, you can smell the fumes.
“It is all about the climate emergency that we signed up to, to ensure our climate is in a better place by 2030.”
However, opposition councillors raised concerns about the cost-of-living implications for drivers.
Cllr Rob White (Green, Park) theorised that 50 per cent of people will be affected by the extra charges, but it would unfairly affect people who don’t have driveways.
He said: “If you are lucky enough to have a driveway in one of the richer bits of town, and one of the bits of town where the houses come with driveways, then you can avoid this cost altogether.
“We think this is unfair, and a fairer system would treat all car drivers equally, rather than what boils down to a ‘terrace tax’ in densely populated parts of town.”
He was then pressed by cllr Rachel Eden (Labour, Whitley) on whether he supported action to improve air quality or not.
She said: “If you want action on pollution at all, you have to support some action, yeah?
“We can’t be in a situation where we make generic comments supporting action, then when specific proposals are brought forward, objecting to them.
“That doesn’t work; that works if you don’t have the ambition to run the council.”
Cllr White then clarified that Greens would support the policy, stating that he was just making a point about the cost-of-living implications.
Meanwhile, cllr Raj Singh (Conservative, Kentwood) accused the Labour administration of ignoring consultations into the change.
He said: “This debate is not about whether we act, but how we act on this particular proposal. We need action which is fair, action which is effective, and action which is evidence-based.”
He pointed out that one person who responded to the consultation, who has a 59 plate car from 2009-2010 claimed they would no longer be able to afford to park.
He said: “This is nothing more than a formality. The decision has already been made.”
Only cllr Singh voted against the increased charges at the policy committee meeting on Monday, November 17.
