What the 2014 Budget Means for Motorists

Posted on March 20, 2014 by admin

Yesterday the Chancellor George Osborne set out the 2014 Budget, and there was plenty of things in there to please British motorists (for a change).

The NMT Garages team outlines how it affects you and your car.

Petrol rise scrapped

We’ve got used to the price of petrol consistently moving in recent years – typically upwards – however this year’s budget scrapped the planned fuel duty increase of 1p, which means it now won’t increase until spring next year.

This of course doesn’t mean that the price of fuel will stay the same for the whole year, as there is also the price of a barrel to consider, and this is of course still out of the government’s hands.

Vehicle Excise Duty is increasing…

Although the petrol duty isn’t going up, the Vehicle Excise Duty is (in line with inflation), which means that from 1st April cars in band D and up will rise by £5 or more a year.

… but you will be able to alter how you pay.

However, one positive change is that from October of this year motorists will have more flexibility over how they choose to pay for their VED. Currently you only have the choice of paying for a full year’s tax or 6 months, but the government are adding the option to pay monthly – easing what can be a hefty financial burden when that time of year comes around.

New £200 million Pothole fund announced

If you asked the motorists of Britain to write down their biggest bug bears of life on the road we imagine that potholes would be quite high up on the list.

Yesterday saw the announcement of a new £200 million fund made available to local authorities to get to work on repairing these problem roads. A good start then, but the RAC warned that just fixing the potholes isn’t enough, and that “whole stretches of road [need] to be resurfaced regularly”.

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