How much is a private driveway worth?

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

With practically one car for every two people in the country, including children, we are probably reaching a point where we don’t actually need any more.   

You are right but at the same time that's the identical mistake that @lookstraightahead is making...

We don't 'need' more cars on the road but many people still want more because private cars are convenient and/or enjoyable and of course in our thriving capitalist country many people can afford such luxuries.

Case in point, my girlfriend and I have four cars between us as we each have a normal car as well as a sports car. However most of the time we travel together in the same car or only one of us is out on the road at any one time so no additional parking needed, no additional road capacity, no extra wear and tear on road surfaces, no extra risk of accidents, no extra fuel stations or charging points needed etc. The insurance companies get this which is why our multi-car policy is much cheaper than when we had four separate policies, it would be great if the government could use the same joined-up thinking.

GDB2222 said:

We could put the vehicle excise duty up to discourage unnecessary car ownership and encourage car sharing or hiring services. ... curtail car ownership and make better use of the available parking space.

I'm already paying £630 a year vehicle tax on just one of my cars despite it rarely being used whereas someone else could be driving tens of thousands of miles a year and only paying £20 a year in tax.

Obviously I'm biased but vehicle tax should be based on usage not ownership. At one time adding vehicle duty to fuel duty would have been the obvious solution so that those who use vehicles more pay more but, with electric now becoming more prevalent, a tax based on mileage is probably the way to go.

Similarly with parking, I'm fortunate enough to have a 100m+ driveway with parking for more than a dozen cars but I'm already paying for that every year by being in the highest Council Tax band. Penalising me even further for having more cars would be wrong. Perhaps that could be part of the solution; an additional Council Tax surcharge for properties that don't have a driveway and therefore are more likely to need scarce on-street parking?

SadieO

YoungBlueEyes said:

And no, I would not be asking for money off for the lack of a driveway. It's already cheaper than the similar house with a drive so I'd say it's already been taken into account. 

Indeed! OP's thinking is a bit odd. It's like looking at a house without a garden, and expecting to knock down the advertised price because of it, when clearly the price is already based on the specs of the house. Or two bedroom house, but expecting to get the price reduced because it doesn't have a third bedroom!

We lived in a terrace with on-street parking for 14 years. We never had a problem parking close to or even right in front of our house until the last couple of years, when we were increasingly stuggling to find any space. I think a few of the houses on the street had changed from families to house-shares so multiple adults lived there, with cars each. And some of the existing families had kids who grew into young adults and got their own cars. We just bought our first house and a drive was one of our dealbreakers. I never want to live anywhere without one again! Even if we ever got rid of our car I'd still prefer to have a drive for visitors and for the future sale-ability of the house. 

gingercordial

You say both properties need work.  People have mentioned that having a drive would be easier for tradesmen.  It may in fact be the difference between getting a tradesman for a reasonable price, versus paying through the nose or not finding anyone willing to do it.  Where I am, they are turning work away and less convenient jobs are quoted higher or not at all.  

They are invaluable for somewhere to put the skip or the pallets of materials that turn up.  In my area if you want a skip on the road you have to apply for a permit and pay for it.  You have to keep watch the day before for people in "your" space moving their cars (what if they don't - it is very stressful and our road's WhatsApp group is full of people asking about whose car this is and begging it to be moved) and run out with bins or cones to secure it.  You hope the skip turns up on the designated day and also is taken away before the end of your permit.  And if you had a skip 100m from your house, it would be full of other people's mattresses before the end of day 1.

I would not have bought a house with no drive.

GDB2222

MobileSaver said:

GDB2222 said:

With practically one car for every two people in the country, including children, we are probably reaching a point where we don’t actually need any more.   

You are right but at the same time that's the identical mistake that @lookstraightahead is making...

We don't 'need' more cars on the road but many people still want more because private cars are convenient and/or enjoyable and of course in our thriving capitalist country many people can afford such luxuries.

Case in point, my girlfriend and I have four cars between us as we each have a normal car as well as a sports car. However most of the time we travel together in the same car or only one of us is out on the road at any one time so no additional parking needed, no additional road capacity, no extra wear and tear on road surfaces, no extra risk of accidents, no extra fuel stations or charging points needed etc. The insurance companies get this which is why our multi-car policy is much cheaper than when we had four separate policies, it would be great if the government could use the same joined-up thinking.

GDB2222 said:

We could put the vehicle excise duty up to discourage unnecessary car ownership and encourage car sharing or hiring services. ... curtail car ownership and make better use of the available parking space.

I'm already paying £630 a year vehicle tax on just one of my cars despite it rarely being used whereas someone else could be driving tens of thousands of miles a year and only paying £20 a year in tax.

Obviously I'm biased but vehicle tax should be based on usage not ownership. At one time adding vehicle duty to fuel duty would have been the obvious solution so that those who use vehicles more pay more but, with electric now becoming more prevalent, a tax based on mileage is probably the way to go.

Similarly with parking, I'm fortunate enough to have a 100m+ driveway with parking for more than a dozen cars but I'm already paying for that every year by being in the highest Council Tax band. Penalising me even further for having more cars would be wrong. Perhaps that could be part of the solution; an additional Council Tax surcharge for properties that don't have a driveway and therefore are more likely to need scarce on-street parking?

We paid around £630 on our old Volvo, too. It’s about 25p per mile for us, so a significant portion of our car budget.

 If £630 is not enough to deter people from having several cars, then add another zero or two to the figure?

YoungBlueEyes

MobileSaver said:

I'm already paying £630 a year vehicle tax on just one of my cars despite it rarely being used whereas someone else could be driving tens of thousands of miles a year and only paying £20 a year in tax.

Obviously I'm biased but vehicle tax should be based on usage not ownership. 

Agree with this.

I've only a wee old Swift that I barely trouble at all and only pootle about it. Himself has a ridiculously thirsty beast of a large comfortable newer Merc that gets driven plenty 6 days a week. His tax is less than mine. Wants addressing does that.

Section62

GDB2222 said:

If £630 is not enough to deter people from having several cars, then add another zero or two to the figure?

MobileSaver's point is a good one, and is something it took the organisation I was working for a while to figure out, but we got there eventually.

Vehicle ownership and vehicle use are two separate problems.  Too often they get blurred into one.  Except with the issue of on-street parking (and to a lesser extent land-use planning) vehicle ownership is not a problem for society.  If someone wants to own 6 vehicles, why shouldn't they, when they can only drive one at a time?

There is an analogous situation here with the number of rooms in people's homes (which require both land use and energy consumption), yet we rarely hear calls for people to be charged punitive tax rates to encourage them to buy houses with fewer bedrooms.  In fact when a policy came along which was aimed at making better use of social housing stock by disincentivising occupation of oversized homes, the reaction was entirely predictable.

Part of the problem with 'car tax' is that it adds to fixed costs and can be a perverse incentive to use a vehicle more than is strictly necessary.  If you are paying £630, £6300 or £63,000 per year to own a vehicle then many people will start seeing the need to maximise the benefit they get for what they are paying - if you are incurring £6300 per year 'car tax' you will be less inclined to leave the vehicle at home and take public transport (at further cost), and in some cases less likely to walk or cycle.  The easy way of reducing your 25p/mile cost is simply to drive more.

The starting point here should be "why do we want to stop people owning cars?"  Not having a driveway helps stop vehicle ownership, but the reason why that is thought to be a good thing needs to be carefully considered.

jrawle

MobileSaver said:

I'm already paying £630 a year vehicle tax on just one of my cars despite it rarely being used whereas someone else could be driving tens of thousands of miles a year and only paying £20 a year in tax.

Obviously I'm biased but vehicle tax should be based on usage not ownership. At one time adding vehicle duty to fuel duty would have been the obvious solution so that those who use vehicles more pay more but, with electric now becoming more prevalent, a tax based on mileage is probably the way to go.

I guess some of the other posters are referring to households that have multiple cars but no/too-few off road parking spaces.

I do agree with you, though, Road charging (like the system proposed some years ago) is the way forward. It would also make it viable to own a car but not use it all the time, and instead take public transport, walk or cycle. At the moment, once you pay to keep a car, it doesn't make financial sense not to use it. Road charging would also allow charging more at peak times to reduce congestion, allow lower charges for people in rural areas who have no alternative, or for people with disabilities, it would allow high charges for driving in city centres with good public transport, etc. The technology is also far more mature now than when this was proposed before (most people are being tracked by all sorts of smartphone apps all day already). VED should be scrapped. Fuel duty could remain at some level to encourage the switch to electric cars. Insurance would be the remaining issue, but that could be PAYG and linked to the charging scheme.

GDB2222

Section62 said:

GDB2222 said:

If £630 is not enough to deter people from having several cars, then add another zero or two to the figure?

MobileSaver's point is a good one, and is something it took the organisation I was working for a while to figure out, but we got there eventually.

Vehicle ownership and vehicle use are two separate problems.  Too often they get blurred into one.  Except with the issue of on-street parking (and to a lesser extent land-use planning) vehicle ownership is not a problem for society.  If someone wants to own 6 vehicles, why shouldn't they, when they can only drive one at a time?

There is an analogous situation here with the number of rooms in people's homes (which require both land use and energy consumption), yet we rarely hear calls for people to be charged punitive tax rates to encourage them to buy houses with fewer bedrooms.  In fact when a policy came along which was aimed at making better use of social housing stock by disincentivising occupation of oversized homes, the reaction was entirely predictable.

Part of the problem with 'car tax' is that it adds to fixed costs and can be a perverse incentive to use a vehicle more than is strictly necessary.  If you are paying £630, £6300 or £63,000 per year to own a vehicle then many people will start seeing the need to maximise the benefit they get for what they are paying - if you are incurring £6300 per year 'car tax' you will be less inclined to leave the vehicle at home and take public transport (at further cost), and in some cases less likely to walk or cycle.  The easy way of reducing your 25p/mile cost is simply to drive more.

The starting point here should be "why do we want to stop people owning cars?"  Not having a driveway helps stop vehicle ownership, but the reason why that is thought to be a good thing needs to be carefully considered.

Just playing the devil’s advocate, if vehicle excise duty went up to £6300 say, we would definitely be looking at some sort of sharing arrangement. A lot of people would. 

If duty were £6300 we could pay around £3-4 a mile for taxis and save money. At that price, there would be plenty of taxis, too. So, no waiting around, which is one thing that puts us off taxis at the moment. 

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

MobileSaver said:

I'm already paying £630 a year vehicle tax on just one of my cars despite it rarely being used whereas someone else could be driving tens of thousands of miles a year and only paying £20 a year in tax.

Obviously I'm biased but vehicle tax should be based on usage not ownership. At one time adding vehicle duty to fuel duty would have been the obvious solution so that those who use vehicles more pay more but, with electric now becoming more prevalent, a tax based on mileage is probably the way to go.

 If £630 is not enough to deter people from having several cars, then add another zero or two to the figure?

Adding a zero would definitely deter me but isn't it actual usage (i.e. using private cars on public roads) that you should be trying to deter? Increasing vehicle tax would have very little if any impact on that.

Regardless of how many cars someone may have they can only drive one at a time and if they're parking them on their own private land then there's simply no reason to be penalising anyone for having several cars.

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

Section62 said:

GDB2222 said:

If £630 is not enough to deter people from having several cars, then add another zero or two to the figure?

The starting point here should be "why do we want to stop people owning cars?"  Not having a driveway helps stop vehicle ownership, but the reason why that is thought to be a good thing needs to be carefully considered.

Just playing the devil’s advocate, if vehicle excise duty went up to £6300 say, we would definitely be looking at some sort of sharing arrangement. A lot of people would. 

If duty were £6300 we could pay around £3-4 a mile for taxis and save money. At that price, there would be plenty of taxis, too. So, no waiting around, which is one thing that puts us off taxis at the moment. 

As @Section62 suggested, the real question is what are you trying to achieve by increasing vehicle tax?

If instead of using your own private car you use a taxi for all journeys then that doesn't reduce usage of roads at all - the exact same journey is still being made, just in a taxi instead of your own car; in fact road usage would increase dramatically as typically the taxi will need to travel firstly to your starting point and then later in the day travel back again to wherever you need picking up for your return journey.

In my rural area, the taxi would have to travel around 10 miles just to get to me and then probably 10 miles back to the nearest town after dropping me off again so that's an additional 20 miles of congestion, pollution and wear and tear for just one return journey.

For the same reason it also means that even if the taxi happened to be sitting there empty when I called then typically I'd still have to wait at least 15 minutes before they could get to me - in my own private car I could be at my destination in that time!