The 2014 Budget and what it means for Motorists

George Osborne has announced that a small number of measures are to be put in place in order to help motorists. The announcement came as part of the new budget in March. The proposed fuel rise in September is the first thing that has been frozen in order to help motorists as well Chancellor George Osborne saying that this should make fuel 20p cheaper per litre. The fuel rise will be abandoned until spring 2015 when it will be looked at once again.

 

There are some budget issues that are bound to impact motorists in other ways motors.co.uk explain to us that anyone selling a car from April 1^st 2014 will no longer be able to transfer their tax discs and any vehicle that falls into band D and upwards are going to see a rise by around £5.

 

However, something that motorists will be glad of, is the £200 million fund given to local authorities to help repair the potholes in the roads. With the bad weather we have seen recently, potholes have become an increasing big problem. This budget should see that they get fixed properly and stay that way for the long term. An article from the Guardian details more about the money being spent on filling in potholes.

 

The RAC have disagreed with the money being spent on the repair of potholes, saying it simply is not enough. The organisation’s technical director has said:

 

“We need whole stretches of road to be resurfaced regularly rather than just patching them when they start to fall apart, costing taxpayers more and more money every year. Simply filling potholes is a massive false economy which has now unfortunately become necessity. We really need to put an end to this by making sure roads are never allowed to degenerate to the point where potholes develop.”

 

Classic cars will once again be exempt from vehicle excise duty and will move to a 40 year rolling period. This will also begin come the 1^st April this year and will see the likes of the Reliant Robin being included in the tax exemption. Previously, only cars built before January 1973 were exempt from tax.

 

Like any budget there are both positive and negative sides to it and some motorists will be glad of the benefits more than others. On the plus side, something is being done about the road’s, giving us a bit of hope that they will continue to improve. More about the new budget can be found on the Telegraph.

 

References:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10708398/Budget-2014-What-it-means-for-motorists.html

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/19/budget-2014-potholes-flood-defences