Cardiff set to use premium parking charges to curb SUVs

Council's cabinet to vote on City Parking Plan

Councillors in Cardiff will vote on plans to tackle the scourge of ‘carspreading’ with plans to implement fairer parking charges for the heaviest vehicles in the city. 

The move has been welcomed by campaigners and the mother of a teenage boy who was hit by a car outside their home.

The official findings of the council’s new City Parking Plan say that “large heavy vehicles take up more parking space and are a danger to other road users.” 

A report which will be considered by the council’s cabinet meeting, recommends: “A surcharge for vehicles over 2,400kg Revenue Weight will be introduced to encourage drivers to switch to smaller vehicles. In time, this will be reduced to 2,000kg (for non-electric vehicles). Very large vehicles (vehicles over 3,500kg Revenue Weight) will not be entitled to permits.”

In a consultation conducted by the council, two-thirds of those who responded (66%) agreed that larger vehicles should pay more for permits, while less than a quarter disagreed (24%).

The news comes after pressure from hundreds of residents who signed a petition calling for “fairer parking charges based on the size of the car to reduce congestion and road danger”. The petition warns: “The higher the vehicle front the more likely a person will be knocked under the car, rather than pushed to the side. And the risk to children is particularly stark.”

The news was welcomed by Helen Edwards, who told councillors how her young teenage son was hit by a car last year.

“Families like mine live every day with the consequences of our streets being dominated by ever-larger vehicles,” she said. “This isn’t about punishing drivers – it’s about protecting children, pedestrians and our communities. If this change helps even one family avoid what we went through, it will be worth it.

“As a parent it’s your worst nightmare to come out of your house and see your child lying in the road. In the hospital, the first thing the doctor wanted to know is what size car he was hit by. The wait to find out if his internal organs were damaged was painstaking – we felt completely helpless.”

Evidence shows that larger vehicles pose a far greater risk to vulnerable road users, children are three times more likely to be killed in a collision with an SUV than a regular car, according to a recent study by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. 

Clean Cities is one of the founder members of The SUV Alliance, a campaign made up of a coalition of 19 environmental and transport groups. The alliance has published a manifesto calling for changes to Vehicle Excise Duty to tax SUVs and the heaviest and most polluting vehicles more when they are sold and allowing local authorities to introduce higher parking charges on SUVs and other heavier, more polluting vehicles.

Oliver Lord, UK head of Clean Cities, said: “Cardiff is showing real vision by standing up to the SUV carspreading that’s taking over our streets. It’s only fair that those driving the biggest, heaviest and most polluting vehicles pay more for the extra space and danger they bring. This is a common-sense policy that will make our city streets safer, cleaner and fairer for everyone. Other cities across the UK could learn from Cardiff’s leadership.”

Preliminary findings from Paris show that action can have real impact. According to reports in Le Parisien, the tripling of the parking rate for "heavy" or SUV-type vehicles in Paris has already made it possible, according to the city, to reduce by two-thirds the number of SUVs using surface parking.

Around 62% of all new cars sold in the UK are now SUVs. Since 2021, around 4.6 million oversized cars – too big for a standard urban parking space – have been sold in the UK, with sales exceeding 1.2 million a year.