What effect will the congestion charge have on Trenchers Catering?
In 2020 Birmingham will need to have changed their pollution levels in the city to acceptable levels or face a hefty fine of up to £60 Million pounds, now we all know that Birmingham city council have struggled to manage the ongoing needs of the Birmingham population on a normal government budget, however, with this fine looming, the congestion charge will be implemented swiftly, and will cause a lot of bother to a small business’s that needs to go in and out of the city on a daily basis.
Trenchers are a small business and we already have to pay quite a lot in parking and fuel costs, so with the proposed cost of between £8 and £10 per day per van to get into the city, we will need to find a minimum of £3650 per year per van. This is a significant amount of money and will mean either not going in to the city for business (which would be almost company suicide) or passing on the extra cost to the customers, which we all know is a really difficult proposition, with money for catering being very tight as it is.
Looking at the issue of pollution in general around the city centre, I would love to know what the pollution levels are like when not at peak times, as what I find is the roads around the city are almost empty from between 10am and 3pm, and in this respect we are not like the centre of London where you would find constant heavy traffic all across the day.
I selfishly believe that the city would benefit from a peak time congestion charge, which would be more of an encouragement for the average worker to use public transport instead of their cars, but then also not push already hard up businesses who need to come in and out of the city numerous times a day to have to pick between work and extra business costs.
I’m not an expert, and I also know we are all in this together, so will abide by whatever congestion charge is put in place, and hope that this will indeed help the environment and not just be another way for the government and council to extort more money from us all.