Bikers have warned they are set to be hit with “disproportionate” parking charges which will see them pay more to park than most cars.

Bath and North East Somerset Council introduced emissions based parking — where drivers pay extra to park depending on their vehicle’s emissions — at car parks in Bath in 2023.

Now the council wants to make £195,000 by rolling out emissions based parking charges to more locations, upping the prices at Bath car parks, and making people pay to park motorbikes and scooters for the first time.

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) has warned that “commuter” motorbikes with smaller engine sizes could pay as much as luxury cars under the “frankly ridiculous” way the council plans to charge bikers.

Colin Brown, director of campaigns and political engagement at the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) said: “The introduction of any parking charges is always going to be controversial. People who’ve never been charged before are obviously never going to want to be charged. But when you look at how it’s being implemented for Bath and North East Somerset, it appears to be disproportionate to another level.”

With emissions based parking, pay and display machines look up a vehicle’s emissions from the DVLA and charge based on how much carbon is emitted or, if this information is not available, the capacity of the engine.

Under the council’s plans, bikes and scooters follow a separate banding system than cars, meaning bikes with smaller engines would pay the same amount as cars with larger engines. A motorbike with an engine capacity over 600cc would be charged the maximum amount, the same as the largest most polluting cars with engines over 2951 cc.

When the proposal was first suggested at a council meeting in March, Independent councillor for Midsomer Norton North Shaun Hughes, a biker himself, pushed the council on this point.

He said: “If we’ve got a young lad got himself a 125 scooter or even a 50cc scooter to get to Bath because he’s going to Bath college, he’s got his first job, or he’s got an apprenticeship, am I right in saying he’s going to have to pay potentially £15 a day to park — £300 a month?”

Manda Rigby, the council’s cabinet member for transport, said that it was a suggestion of what could be charged if there was not emissions data on the DVLA system. But she added: “We are going out to a consultation that says are we looking at this in the right way? Should we be charging motorbikes, and if so how should we be charging them?”

MAG have warned that the proposed bandings mean that bikes such as a Honda CB500F which does 82 miles to the gallon would pay the same as a Bentley Bantayga, which they said would do about 21 miles to the gallon.

The charges would kick in from October. The consultation on the council’s parking plans — which also proposes the end of free parking at car parks in Midsomer Norton and Radstock — closed on Thursday, August 8.