The persecution of motorists could soon make driving an elite pursuit

If using a car becomes too expensive in cities like London, drivers will not get on the Tube or the bus. They may leave the city

Drivers could soon face a new form of punishment. Merton council, in south London, is planning to charge some motorists over £500 a year just to park near to their homes, in a move that is expected to set a trend across the country. The highest fee will apply to owners of older, more polluting vehicles, but it is a travesty nonetheless.

The point of parking permits is surely to ensure that local people have priority when parking on their own roads. Now, via diesel and emissions surcharges, they are being used to render car ownership unaffordable for all but the relatively wealthy, who in the case of parking permits are more likely to be able to escape such charges if they live in houses with driveways.

Members of the environmental-transport nexus will claim that the dizzying array of taxes, levies, charges and penalties on driving are designed to incentivise a switch to newer, cleaner vehicles, or better still to public transport. Road tax is similarly graded to penalise owners of more polluting vehicles, as do low emissions zones. Subsidies or exemptions, meanwhile, are lavished on electric vehicles.

They also argue that driving in the UK is too cheap. They would be delighted if the Chancellor were to end the freeze on fuel duty in his Budget this week, not out of any fiscal rectitude, but because they think that the environmental costs of driving are not sufficiently captured by existing levels of duty.

Their diagnosis is flawed. People do not drive because it is inexpensive relative to other forms of transport, but because it is the only practical way of getting around. Families, pensioners, those who live far from stations or bus routes, or those who simply prize the flexibility that cars provide are not going to switch en masse to public transport.

If driving becomes too expensive in cities like London, they will not get on the Tube or the bus. They may leave the city.

The idea that millions can smoothly switch to cleaner vehicles is also questionable, to say the least. Obviously they may be able to buy a smaller low-emission vehicle. But will it be equivalent to their existing car?

Some drivers will face the almost impossible choice between paying hundreds, even thousands of pounds, in new annual charges or taxes, or spending tens of thousands of pounds on a new car that may not even be appropriate for their needs.

And this on top of the existing cost of driving in the UK.

The vice is tightening, and my fear is that the target of switching the country to electric vehicles will become, year-by-year, an effective ban on other types of engine as the financial cost of using them increases because of decisions of councils such as Merton.

If this country truly believed in freedom, it would be making it cheaper, not more expensive, to drive. Instead, barring some dramatic technological leap forward, we are at risk of turning it into an elite pursuit.