GMTA president Robert Cornelius said his members always knew it was a matter of when, not if, it would happen.
‘We always mentioned that fuel wasn’t a sustainable way, because cars are going to go electric, and internal combustion cars are becoming more efficient, and so your fuel sales are declining. We are seeing that ourselves.’
But Mr Cornelius is less sanguine about P&R’s plan to raise £7m. more, in total, each year from local motorists.
He said it was unfair that motoring always seemed to be the target.
‘Take boats. We currently don’t have enough money to repair the North Beach marina gates. The boat owners rightly don’t want to pay more mooring fees. But we don’t charge them loads of duty on their fuel, and some of those boats burn a lot of fuel, but we charge motorists a lot of money for driving around.’
Asked if he thought that bringing in motoring taxes on electric vehicles would would have an impact on the increasing number of EVs on local roads, he said he thought it might have a slight effect but that would probably be outweighed by the fact that the cost of electric cars was coming down.
On the separate proposal from P&R to bring in a ‘luxury tax’ on vehicles valued at more than £50,000, Mr Cornelius said that did not come as a surprise.
‘There is a luxury tax in the UK, paid in a slightly different way, paid over a period of years, so it doesn’t really surprise us that they would look at this as an additional revenue stream. That said, it does start at £50,000 and there are lots of vehicles available for under £50,000, so obviously most people won’t be affected.’