Labour's anti-driver policies

Local residents around the constituency have told me how much the anti-driver policies of Birmingham City Council have affected their daily lives.

The Labour-run council has imposed a tax on drivers to drive into the city centre. Unless you have a much newer vehicle that complies with the clean air zone (CAZ), you will be stung with a charge of £8 per day each time you visit the city. Businesses with coaches or HGVs that go into the city must pay £50 per day.

This is a regressive tax that affects those on lower income who are unable to afford newer, CAZ compliant vehicles far more than people who earn more and are more likely to have a newer vehicle.

It is not uncommon to hear stories of people working in sectors like healthcare, often working night shifts, who must pay twice just to go to work as they are driving into and out of the zone on two different days.

More locally, you can see the impact that low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which closes certain roads to through traffic and pushes vehicles onto other, usually already busy roads, have had on residents and businesses in our area.

Local streets in Kings Heath and Bournville have been hit with greater congestion which, ironically given the supposed aims of the City Council, worsens air quality. In places like Kings Heath, it makes visiting these centres to use local businesses more difficult, and passing trade has suffered.

All these are examples of the policies that the anti-car zealots have been pushing on local areas, often without significant local support. Birmingham City Council’s Labour leadership are amongst the most anti-car and anti-driver in the entire country.

We need to look no further than their Transport Plan 2031 which could see the closure of the A38 tunnels in the city centre. The extraordinary damage this will do to vehicle travel in our city will not just extend to the inconvenience of commuters but could massively impact on our city economy that many residents rely upon for work.

That’s why I’m backing new proposals by the Conservatives to put more power in people’s hands to decide what happens on their local roads.

As your representative in Parliament, I will back plans to make local councils get local support through a referendum for policies like LTNs or blanket 20mph zones. After all, if the local politicians think these policies are so successful, why shouldn’t they have to get consent from the local population before implanting them.

A new law will also make sure that no local politician or mayor can introduce pay-per-mile road taxes, like the Mayor of London has previously suggested.

This will put the power back in the hands of local people, who these policies affect far more than those sitting in their town hall offices like in Birmingham.

These changes will enshrine drivers’ rights in law and end the war that Labour politicians have been waging on motorists for the last few years.