Birmingham has become the latest city to mull a possible workplace parking levy as it looks to deal with rising congestion and emissions.

The workplace parking levy could see Birmingham workers face annual charges of £500 to park their car in 2023-24

The plans, due to go before cabinet next week, could see drivers being forced to pay £500 a year to park in the city in 2023-24, rising to £609 by 2033-34, raising an estimated £88.75m over 10 years. And the workplace parking levy would run alongside its Class D charging Clean Air Zone due next year.

Cllr Waseem Zaffar, cabinet member for Transport and Environment at Birmingham City Council, said: “A workplace parking levy would help tackle air pollution, fund public transport improvements, reduce congestion and improve the way we move around our city.

“We have already undertaken some initial work to understand the potential benefit of a workplace parking levy in Birmingham, but we are now seeking approval from the council’s cabinet for further investigations.

“We will, of course, work closely with the business community and will carry out a full consultation before a decision is made in late 2021 for implementation no earlier than 2023-24.”

Birmingham is not the only council mulling such a move at the moment. Although Nottingham remains the only city to date to implement a workplace parking levy – which went live in 2012 – the option continues to come under focus from local authorities, including Oxford and Reading, while Leicester announced plans to explore such measures two months ago.

However, the AA has branded such schemes a “tax on work” and said that other measures, such as park and ride, should be much more prevalent before cities turn to workplace parking levies.