A London council is to shift to an emissions-based charging model for residents’ parking permits, including a new cost for electric vehicles.
Hammersmith and Fulham’s Cabinet agreed proposals to amend its existing charging model in a bid to encourage behaviour change away from driving higher-emitting vehicles.
The borough’s resident parking permit charges have not been updated since 2012, with no increase in-line with inflation over that period. The current Labour administration came in in 2014.
From January 2025, the council is looking to introduce a new payment model, offering either a 12-month, six-month or rolling monthly permit based on seven tiers of emissions. A diesel surcharge of 50 per cent is also to be included, plus an additional fee for second vehicles.
The existing costs for a resident permit are either £119 or £60 for a vehicle producing 100g/km of CO2 or less, and which is Euro 5 compliant, over a 12-month period. Electric vehicles can be parked for free. For second vehicles, there is a flat fee of £497.
Under the new proposals, presented to the council’s cabinet last night (October 7), the fee is to range from £125 to £340 a year, depending on the emissions produced. The rolling monthly permit options will range from £10.42 to £28.33. Second vehicles will be charged triple.
Roughly 17.31 per cent of current resident permit holders with a first vehicle permit are estimated to have to pay the diesel surcharge, rising to 24 per cent of those with a second permit.
On the proposal to introduce costs for electric vehicles, officers wrote “they still have a negative impact on public health and it is notable that electric vehicles continue to produce considerable amounts of air pollution emissions, from brake wear and tyre wear. It should also be noted they are no different from other vehicles in the space they take up on the public carriageway. They also contribute to general congestion increasing the amount of idling time conventional vehicles spend on their journeys.”
At last night’s meeting, Cllr Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler, leader of the Conservative opposition, said the fact the administration had not increased parking charges “seems to make you think that you’re allowed to just put them up to whatever price you fancy, and I can’t tell you how cross so many people are”.
Cllr Brocklebank-Fowler also queried the comprehensiveness of the paper presented to Cabinet. She asked: “Where is the research into the economic impact on shops and businesses if everyone has to pay so much more to park and so on and so forth? What revenue are you getting at the moment from having residents’ parking permits at that cost and residents/visitors parking? And how much additional revenue are you expecting?”
Cllr Stephen Cowan, Leader of the council, said the proposal is about the borough hitting its climate change objectives, and is not a money-making venture.
He said to Cllr Brocklebank-Fowler: “You know the law as well as we do. You never alter parking charges for money. You alter them to make changes to other policies; traffic flows, environmental measures, and the such.”
Asked about the proposal to begin charging owners of electric vehicles to park, Cllr Cowan echoed the points made in the officers’ report that while emitting fewer emissions than petrol or diesel, they are not non-polluting.
He also said he would work with officers at looking at how the impacts on those in hardship can be mitigated if required, following a question from Cllr Adronie Alford.
The Cabinet’s approval means the implementation of the scheme will now be delegated to the Executive Director of Place, in conjunction with the Cabinet Member for Public Realm, Cllr Sharon Holder, alongside an annual review of the charges.
The decision to introduce the new charging model for residents follows on from a similar scheme rolled out for visitor parking in 2021, and updated last year.
As a result, between 2022 and 2024, the council says there has been a four per cent decrease in diesel vehicles recorded, alongside a five per cent increase in electric and hybrid vehicle usage.
The new scheme also includes amendments to charges for resident visitor permits, business visitor permits and visitor parking. Key worker permits will not be moved to an emissions-based model, though will be subject to an inflation-linked increase.
Other London councils, including Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, have already introduced emissions-based parking schemes. The City of London Corporation earlier this year also agreed to implement similar charges for its owned car parks.
