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UK households face new tax on homes with private driveways

by DD Staff

July 17, 2024

UK households who have their 'own driveway' face new tax

key takeaways

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is plotting to copy a major city with plan to tax driveways, in a brutal blow to UK household finances.

Households in the UK with driveways have been alerted to an impending harsh new tax. A devastating blow to UK household budgets, Labour Party London Mayor Sadiq Khan is preparing to imitate a big metropolis by imposing a driveway tax.

Slapping a fee on people who don't have natural runoffs in their gardens—like grass—because it's been known to be utilized to make driveways is one strategy to combat localized flooding. Keir Starmer's new Labour government has been advised to look into implementing "stormwater charges" by the London Climate Resilience Review (LCRR).

Mr Khan ordered the review following flash floods in 2012 and the 2022 heatwave warning of a "lethal risk" to Londoners. The report said: "As more people are angered by their neighbours adding to local flood risk, one solution could be charging people based on the surface area of the land they own that is impermeable,"

"This would not only raise much-needed revenue to mitigate risks, but also disincentivise paving over gardens and other green spaces." Four in 10 properties in London will be affected by subsidence by the end of this decade, as soil dries out in the expected higher temperatures, and heatwaves are likely to claim thousands more lives if action is not taken.

Emma Howard Boyd, the chair of the review, said the recommendation to ask people to pay stormwater charges when they concrete over their gardens was about “encouraging people to do the right things for the environment”, rather than penalising them.

“We looked at what has worked in other parts of the world,” she said. “We have concreted over too many areas – we need to stop creating a city where we have so much hard surface when what we need are spongier ways of absorbing water.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of holes being dug by service providers, which could be mapped and coordinated, and in the appropriate places you could have rain gardens that absorb water,” she said. Howard Boyd said: “We are entering a new era. In 2024, even as El Niño fades, we are set for another record-breaking year of deadly heatwaves, wildfires and storms. In the last year, floods in the UK have upended lives and battered local economies. The health and security of Londoners and the health of the national economy are inseparable.”