Disabled people on the higher rate of Disability Living Allowance or the Enhanced rate of Personal Independence Payment are exempt from vehicle excise duty/tax. This meant that those most vulnerable in society and with the severe disabilities are able to park their vehicles in most council run car parks without charge.

It was easy for traffic wardens to see which vehicles were tax exempt during the days of the tax disc because it stated so on the disc, this was done with a NIL written in the price box and disabled in the tax band box. Back on the 31st of September 2014 the paper tax disc was abolished by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. This caused issues for the wardens who patrol council run car parks as they no longer knew which vehicles were tax exempt.

Each council around the country has now had to come up with a new way of being able to identify which vehicles parking in their car parks were tax exempt. Because this was being decided by each local authority and not by the government, the way's in which this was achieved varied dramatically from one county to another. Some just had a database where you registered your vehicle registration number, this was then viewable by the wardens patrolling the car parks. The other method, which was most used were disabled exemption parking permits which you had to apply for. These were like the old tax discs which you display on your windscreen.

My local council used to provide this free of charge via a paper permit but have now started charging £15 for residents or £25 for non residents, this has to be renewed every time the blue badge is renewed, which is every three years. 

After doing some more research into the other local council's practices it appears that most of them are charging tax exempt motorists for these permits. I understand that it costs money to run these databases and cover the costs of producing the permits, I'm also happy to pay a small fee for this. However I live in a county run by multiple councils who all have different rules on disabled parking, most are charging for these permits. I know there are plenty of counties like this in the UK so this affects many people.  The next council to me are charging £40 for residents and £60 for non residents for three years. Another council in the South West is charging £40 a year which I think is scandalous. 

If like me you live in a county split into numerous councils and you visit all of those areas regularly, its going to cost a lot of money to purchase these permits. Most of us who are tax exempt have no choice but to pay for a permit because most parking meters aren't accessible to wheelchair users anyway. This is going to force disabled people to either park on double yellow lines or have to stay at home because we're being priced out of parking in the town/city centres.

I would like to see a government or DVLA run, nationwide disabled parking permit scheme introduced for tax exempt motorists. A paper disc that's renewed every three years to run alongside the blue badge scheme. Ideally it would be great if this was without charge but would be happy to pay towards the cost of producing the parking permit. This will take the fear away from disabled people of being unable to afford to go out and socialise and will bring one set of rules to the whole country, currently the rules are confusing for disabled motorists as they're all different. 

Please help us to have a fairer and nationwide, taxed exempt disabled parking permit by signing this petition.

Thank you

Matthew