#Bristol's £1 Million Workplace Parking Levy Study: How Bristol City Council Spent 14 Years and £130,000 Studying What Nottingham Proved Works in 2011.

Green Party Bristol Revives Corporate Parking Levy After Secret Report Scandal – £10 Million Annual Revenue Still Years Away.

(Image: Bright Green)

Let me tell you a story about Bristol City Council and the workplace parking levy. It begins in 2011 and somehow, miraculously, is still only in “Stage One” in 2025. It’s about spending £1 million to study something you’ve already spent £30,000 studying, which was studying something Nottingham proved worked a decade earlier.

Whilst Nottingham has collected £90 million in revenue, Bristol has collected precisely nothing. Zero pounds. But Bristol has spent at least £130,000 finding out that the scheme works.

It’s bureaucracy as performance art. And you’re paying for the tickets.

The Numbers That Tell the Real Story

Bristol City Council’s transport and connectivity committee approved spending up to £1 million to draw up an outline business case for the workplace parking levy on 12 September 2024. Not to implement it. Not to build it. Not to collect a single penny of revenue. Just to study whether they should.

For context, Nottingham City Council has generated over £90 million from their workplace parking levy since it started in 2011. In the same timeframe, Bristol has generated precisely zero pounds in levy revenue, but has spent at least £130,000 studying the idea.

That’s not a typo. Bristol has spent over £130,000 to repeatedly discover what everyone already knows: the thing works.

A Brief History of Bristol’s Workplace Parking Levy (Or: The Same Report, Five Times)

2011-2018: The First Dalliance

Bristol City Council initially discussed the workplace parking levy in 2011, the same year Nottingham launched theirs. The workplace parking levy was formally suggested in Bristol’s Transport Strategy in October 2018.

Nottingham took action. Bristol took notes.

2020: The £30,000 Study

A Bristol City Council budget amendment by the Greens in February 2020 secured £30,000 for an appraisal report for the corporate parking levy. The money was allocated. The report was commissioned. Then something magical happened: the report was completed, and Bristol City Council decided the best thing to do with it was... nothing. They didn’t publish it. They didn’t act on it. They buried it.

2021: The Broken Promise

In November 2021, Green Councillor David Wilcox called on the Labour administration to publish the report and commit to establishing a workplace parking levy, with a timetable to have it up and running by April 2024.

Spoiler alert: It’s October 2025. There is no workplace parking levy. April 2024 came and went like a bus Bristol forgot to fund.

Cllr Wilcox said at the time: “It could provide over £12 million each year for Bristol to invest in upgrading our public transport and active travel.”

That was four years ago. Four years of £12 million annually equals £48 million Bristol didn’t collect because they were too busy “studying” it.

2023: The Secret Report Scandal

In August 2023, after a judge ordered Bristol City Council to publish its report, the workplace parking levy plan was dropped. The council had been fighting to keep the report secret. Green Councillor Ed Plowden had to take them to an Information Rights Tribunal just to see the study taxpayers had funded.

The report concluded: “Bristol City Council is well positioned to progress with the development of a WPL.”

Then-Mayor Marvin Rees killed the scheme anyway, citing the cost of living crisis: “With high inflation during a national cost of living crisis, now is not the time to create more costs for people.”

Except the levy charges employers, not employees directly. And if cost of living was the concern, why not use the £12 million annual revenue to improve public transport and reduce commuting costs?

Green Party national co-leader and Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer told the BBC’s Politics West: “The lowest income people in our city generally don’t have cars. Providing free car parking is a subsidy to better-paid employees when (companies) are not giving free bus tickets to their cleaners.”

2024: The £1 Million Revival

The Green Party, now the biggest party on Bristol City Council, has revived the scheme. Same idea. Different year. Another study. Another report. Another round of consultants billing hourly.

Under the proposed scheme, workplaces that provide free parking for staff would be charged for those spaces – with £20 per space per week being mooted. It would be up to Bristol businesses whether to pass the cost on to employees, or swallow the cost themselves.

Money collected from the workplace parking charges – which could be £10 million a year – would be ring-fenced to pay for sustainable transport schemes. The levy would likely be charged on about 9,000 parking spaces at city centre workplaces.

The outline business case is expected to take a year to prepare, and the feasibility report gave an indicative three-year timeframe to charging commencing.

If everything goes perfectly (it won’t), Bristol might collect its first pound of levy revenue in 2028. That’s 17 years after Nottingham started.

What Bristol Taxpayers Are Actually Paying For

The £1 million isn’t for implementation. It’s for an “outline business case.” Here’s what that means in practice:

Stage One (£1 million, 12 months):

• Stakeholder engagement with Bristol businesses

• Economic and financial analysis

• Legal and governance framework

• Communications strategy

• Risk assessment

Stage Two (£2 million estimate, 24+ months):

• Full business case

• Detailed implementation plan

• IT systems procurement

• Enforcement framework for workplace parking charges

So the total bill before collecting a single penny? Potentially £3 million. Plus annual operating costs estimated at £1-2 million.

The Consultant’s Dream

Whoever wins this contract has struck consultant gold:

• Fixed price, low risk: £1 million for outline work, no implementation responsibility

• No accountability: If the scheme never happens, not their problem

• Guaranteed payment: Council approval means the money is committed

• No performance metrics: The deliverable is a document, not results

• Built-in delays: “Complexity” and “stakeholder issues” extend timelines without penalty

This is what consultants dream of: maximum fees, minimum accountability, zero risk.

Ten Questions Bristol City Council Won’t Answer

1. Why did we pay £1 million for this when we already had a feasibility study?

2. How is this different from the 2020-2021 study we paid £30,000 for?

3. What specifically changed that required starting from scratch?

4. Why weren’t Bristol businesses consulted before we approved £1 million in spending?

5. What happens if Stage Two costs £5 million instead of £2 million?

6. What’s the minimum revenue target that makes this worthwhile?

7. Do we have any commitment from the DfT for match-funding?

8. What’s the penalty if we cancel after spending £1 million?

9. Can we see the original 2020-2021 report that was hidden from us?

10. Why should Bristol residents trust us on this when we’ve been “studying” it for 14 years?

These questions won’t be asked because the answers would be embarrassing.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Bristol’s Green Leadership

Bristol City Council doesn’t actually want a workplace parking levy. Not really.

If they wanted it, they would have implemented it in 2012 when Nottingham proved it worked. If they wanted it, they wouldn’t have buried the 2020-2021 feasibility study. If they wanted it, they wouldn’t have needed a judge to force them to publish their own report. If they wanted it, they wouldn’t be starting “Stage One” again in 2024 after already completing it in 2021.

What Bristol City Council wants is to appear to be doing something about Bristol traffic congestion without actually doing anything controversial. They want the political benefit of “taking action” without the political risk of actual action.

The £1 million study is perfect for this. It’s expensive enough to seem serious. It takes long enough to push the difficult decision beyond the next election cycle. And it creates enough process that when it fails, they can blame “complications” rather than cowardice.

What This Really Costs Bristol

Let’s talk about the real cost of this £1 million study.

Direct costs:

• £1 million for outline business case (2024-2025)

• £30,000 for previous feasibility study (2020-2021)

• £100,000+ in staff time, legal fees, and tribunal costs

• Total: £1.13 million spent, zero revenue generated

Opportunity costs:

• Nottingham has collected £90 million since 2011

• If Bristol had implemented in 2012: ~£120 million in potential revenue lost

• If Bristol had implemented after the 2021 study: ~£36 million lost

• Current timeline (2028 implementation): £84 million lost by then

Political costs:

• Public trust eroded by secret reports and broken promises

• Bristol business community alienated by lack of consultation

• Green Party credibility damaged by inability to deliver their flagship policy

• Taxpayer money wasted on repetitive studies

According to Centre for Cities analysis, Bristol would have secured £800 million committed in public transport investments if the city council had struck similar deals to Nottingham. That’s 48% larger than what was recently announced for the West of England Combined Authority over the next five years.

The real cost isn’t £1 million. It’s the transport improvements Bristol could have funded. It’s the buses that weren’t bought. It’s the cycle lanes that weren’t built. It’s the Bristol congestion that wasn’t reduced.

It’s 14 years of potential progress traded for endless process.

The Leadership Question: Are Bristol’s Greens Competent to Govern?

This brings us to a fundamental question about Bristol’s Green-led council: Are they competent to govern?

The workplace parking levy isn’t a radical new idea. It’s proven technology. Nottingham implemented it 14 years ago. Derby is implementing it now. Other cities are watching and learning.

Bristol, meanwhile, is still in “Stage One” of studying it.

This suggests one of three possibilities:

1. Ideological paralysis: The Greens know what they want but lack the political courage to implement it

2. Administrative incompetence: They simply don’t know how to translate policy into action

3. Strategic theatre: They never intended to implement it; the studies are performative

None of these options inspires confidence.

A council that cannot implement a proven policy after 14 years of trying is a council that struggles with basic governance. It’s like watching a kindergarten child attempt a university degree - the enthusiasm is there, but the capability simply isn’t. Whether it’s head-in-the-clouds ideology, administrative incompetence masquerading as thoroughness, or deliberate delay tactics, the result is the same: Bristol pays for process, not progress.

The workplace parking levy has become a perfect metaphor for Bristol City Council’s Green leadership: endless consultation, perpetual studies, and zero delivery. It’s governance by committee report. It’s action as aspiration. It’s what happens when politicians confuse talking about doing things with actually doing them.

The Bottom Line

Bristol City Council is about to spend £1 million studying something they’ve already studied multiple times, for a policy that’s been proven to work elsewhere for over a decade, with implementation not expected until 2028 at the earliest.

That’s not governance. That’s expensive procrastination with a PowerPoint presentation.

Nottingham collected £90 million whilst Bristol was “studying.” That money built tram extensions, funded bus improvements, and reduced congestion. It didn’t happen by accident. It happened because someone made a decision and followed through.

Bristol has made the same decision five times and followed through zero times.

Maybe the real question isn’t whether Bristol should have a workplace parking levy. Maybe it’s whether Bristol should have a city council capable of making and implementing decisions.

Because right now, what Bristol has is a £1 million study of why it can’t do what Nottingham did 14 years ago.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is your council tax at work.

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Sources & Further Reading

• Bristol City Council Transport & Connectivity Committee Report, 12 September 2024

• Bristol Cable: “Bristol plan for parking levy dropped as council forced to publish report” (August 2023)

• Business Biscuit: “Bristol commuters could be charged for staff parking under new scheme” (September 2024)

• Bristol World: “Bristol firms face £400-a-year levy for every employee parking at work” (November 2021)

• ITV West Country: “Bristol firms could be charged £400 for every parking space they have” (November 2021)

• Centre for Cities: “A lost decade of Workplace Parking Levy: what were the costs for Bristol?” (December 2021)

• TransportXtra: “Bristol presses for workplace parking levy and C-charge” (October 2018)

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