The recently introduced taxation on HGV’s coming to the UK from foreign countries could make more than double the amount the government first expected, according to Treasury figures.
Foreign road haulage companies have to pay anywhere between £1.70 and £10 a day to use the UK road network.
The taxation was introduced in April this year as UK lorries often have to pay to use roads across Europe.
Close to one million levies have been bought so far. That’s £23.4m that has gone to the Treasury since April, the government expected to collect only £20m for the full year.
If a foreign lorry is caught without paying the levy they would face a £300 roadside fine.
The top five European countries who have bought the most levies are Poland, Romania, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic, although theses figures do not accurately tell us which country has the most lorries on our roads. When a company is buying a 1 day pass or a whole years pass they are both counted as only 1 levy even though the yearly pass driver might be driving around the UK a couple of hundred times in the year.
The new taxation was widely welcomed by UK haulage companies, who were not happy that they were having to pay to use roads across Europe when foreign competition could use our roads for free.
The now expected figure of £35m - £40m for the full year may sound like a lot to you and I, however it won’t go very far to buying any new roads. To give you an idea of how much it costs to improve our road network the new A14 improvements will cost around £1.5b.
There is no guarantee that the money raised from these levies will go towards our roads anyway as the Treasury does not publish details on where the money will be spent.
