Birmingham City Council has gone bankrupt, but many other local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy.
Has the expansion of ULEZ and parking space permits a lot to do with plugging London's finances and very little to do with the environment.
Putting up Council Tax is a very unpopular decision in Labour Party dominated London. Most importantly because evasion of payments of Council Tax is going up and local authorities know that putting up Council Tax payments in London means that less people will pay Council Tax. Like other local authorities across the land, London Authorities are desperate for money and running out of time to pay debts before services delivered by local authorities are compromised.
Getting closer to an election year, Sadiq Khan has been campaigned very hard for the extension of ULEZ and for the imposition of parking permits (Council Tax under another name) with the excuse of protecting the environment as a way to make people forget that it is actually a rise of Council Tax.
Local business are being starved of funds. It was not enough with having to pay extortionate business rates, insurance, maintenance payments and rental agreements in a economy that underwent lockdown measures with nefarious consequences. During the imposition of lockdown measures, small businesses across not just London, but across the land closed their doors. Income tax is a tax based on real income. All other expenses have little to do with what a business can actually make. Most other taxes are taxes that have to be paid regardless of how much a business makes and the smaller ones suffered the brunt. But big companies were not untouched. Some managed to cope and others are now showing signs that it is game over for them. Some are being acquired and rebranded, but in any case jobs losses are unavoidable.
In some cases, businesses are collapsing because of ULEZ, parking permits, and traffic changes that push customers away. Overnight, a local business might be closing its doors because the aforementioned - ULEZ, parking permits, and traffic changes - have literally left them without enough customers to pay taxes and other bills.
If businesses big and small go down, the expansion of ULEZ and parking permits and traffic changes are going to deliver a Pyhrric Victory for local authorities and the state treasury. If businesses go down, tax receipts go down. If businesses go down, unemployment goes up and the Welfare budget that includes payments for unemployment will go up.
Instead of helping businesses recover from years of lockdown, local authorities will bankrupt themselves by bankrupting businesses that support the local economy that produce the income that local authorities very much need.
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