[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Taf

Cardiff paid for a study on air pollution. It's not surprising that the 20mph limits over the past year have caused a rise in emissions. 67 new real-time monitors have been put in place, and bus routes truncated to keep them out of the city centre. And now a "critical zone" has been identified, all around the main monitoring station. ULEZ will be here soon enough. The car parks are rarely even half full due to WFH, falling tourist numbers, and shops closing. The new "bus station" is still not in operation after they demolished the original in 2015, and it looks like it will just be a fancy building with a few bus stops under it.

So, to make up the shortfall, the car parks fees have risen.

In England, councils' income from central government (where most of their income comes from) has been severely cut so they've been cutting expenditure and finding other ways to tap us.

These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic. Though even including Covid grants, the fall in income was still 21% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2021/22; without, the fall was 31%.

While grants from central government were cut, rates of council tax, set by individual councils, were allowed to increased. Local authorities raised 30% more council tax, in real terms, in 2021/22 compared to 2009/10.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.o...the%20pandemic.