Brian Lake on his motorcycle

TWO wheels good, four wheels bad might be the mantra of the moment –  but not if you are powering those two wheels with a petrol engine.

That’s the message motorcyclists say they are getting as the Town Hall looks to hit bikers with massive increases in parking permits.

Camden Council plans to start charge motorbike and moped users the same as cars for parking permits – around £600 a year – from this autumn.

And a new rule says if you own a car and a motorbike, you can only have one permit – forcing bikers into choosing between the two.

Other costs would see bikers living in car-free developments forced to pay nearly £1,000 a year while costs for electric motorcycles will be introduced, ranging from £75 to £500 a year.

Brian Lake lives in Kentish Town and runs an antiquarian bookshop in Bloomsbury, which he gets to each day on his motorbike.

“The strategy – to charge unreasonably high fees for parking a motorcycle – has little to do with ‘clean air’ and ‘reduced pollution’, and is clearly punitive, wrong in its direction and unfair. Camden needs to provide detailed analysis of motorcycle users,” he said.

“In my contention motorcycle use tends to be by people who cannot afford a car. In other words, Camden is penalising poorer residents of the borough.”

He said bikes were a good way to tackle pollution, as they took up less space and had smaller engines.

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Currently, Camden has free bays for motorcyclists to use across the borough  and they do not need residents’ parking permits.

He said that motorcycle with engines under 500cc combined with the small numbers of people who use them means the charges imposed are “unjustifiably high”.

Councillors had the distress laid out to them at a full council meeting in April when a deputation said motorcyclists felt unfairly targeted in a tactic to balance Town Hall finances.

Campaigner Ben Pearson went as far as telling the council chamber: “Perhaps the council simply doesn’t like us.”

Mr Lake, who has been commuting on a motorbike for 60 years, said: “If the council feels it is justified in making the charges proposed, it should provide facts and figures on the projections for reduced pollution.

“By my calculation, residents’ parking for a motorcycle will cost as much as a car, which takes up at least five times the space and is many more times polluting.”

He said he faced having to pay an extra £800 a year to keep on doing what he had always done as charges were introduced to park near his business.

He added that the craze for souped-up push bikes with electric engines were not covered by the changes and users were already free from having to pay insurance and road tax – as well as wearing a helmet.

A Town Hall spokesman said: “In line with other London councils – like Westminster, which brought in similar measures many years ago – we are introducing permits and parking charges for motorcycle users.

“We recognise motorcycles’ lower impact compared with larger vehicles, which is why these bays will cost less than standard bays, all the while ensuring all vehicle owners in Camden contribute fairly. The measures are based on emissions, and so this is part of our wider work to reduce the carbon impacts of transport in the borough.”