Campaigners call for parking charges to be based on car size

Clean Cities, a European network of organisations calling for healthy and climate-friendly transport in cities, wants drivers of SUVs to pay more for to park their cars in cities.  

Around 4.6 million cars have been sold in the UK that are bigger than a typical urban car parking space since 2021 - more than 1.2 million a year, with numbers growing, according to researchers at Clean Cities.

Fleet News recently reported how the trend towards heavier and wider cars – so called ‘carbesity’ or ‘carspreading’ – is impacting fleet operations, with the AA having to modify equipment used to recover vehicles from the roadside.  

The AA’s fleet director, Duncan Webb, told Fleet News at 10 that the breakdown and recovery company has been forced to adapt its equipment to cope with the increase in weight and size of vehicles, with the situation getting “progressively worse”.

Oliver Lord, UK head of clean cities, said: “Cars are getting bigger every year while our streets are not. 

“We need carmakers to prioritise normal sized cars that can be parked more easily and are less dangerous to people walking around. 

“It’s only fair if you want to buy a massive SUV that you should expect to pay more for the space it takes up.”

Campaigners are calling for fairer taxes in favour of lighter and more appropriately sized cars and for parking costs in cities to be based on the size of a car. 

In a You Gov poll commissioned by Clean Cities, when asked how the money raised from additional charges on SUVs be spent, the most popular measures amongst car owners were to fix potholes (54%) on Britain’s roads, followed by safer roads (40%) and better public transport (36%). 

Only 19% said there should be no additional measures for SUVs, according to. 

A new UK academic paper published this week claimed that heavier cars are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions and average car weight in the UK is increasing. 

Reducing car weight could mitigate the severity and frequency of collisions, while the academics suggest that policy makers could consider “taxation on heavier cars” and that “local authorities could adjust parking policies to charge higher fees for heavier cars”. 

The study, led by civil engineer Ruth Carlson with a co-author from the University of Huddersfield, is based on preliminary findings with the full paper out later this year.