FOLLOW THE MONEY...

As the nights draw in and the autumn days begin to feel colder and drift towards winter, people begin to think about Christmas, paying their extortionate heating  bills. If you live in South Wales (and commute over the Severn Bridges) lurking at the back of your mind is the prospect of yet another Severn Bridge toll increase. Back in June (2013) the Welsh Government was told by a UK Westminster government minister that any changes in the running of the Severn bridges must benefit motorists in both Wales and England.

Merry Christmas from Severn Crossings PLC - not!

The Welsh government had indicated that it would like to take ownership of the two Severn Bridges when they come back into public ownership in 2018.  By then it is expected that Severn River Crossings plc will have milked its cash cow to the tune of about £ 1.029 billion pounds. Just to add insult to injury the old (M48) Severn Bridge is periodically closed at weekends for routine maintenance, which continues to be funded by the Department for Transport, from the public coffers.

At the end of the day, it comes down to money, how much there is? How much there could be? And how much will people have to continue to pay to cross the Severn Bridges? If we are not watching the pennies, then the politicians certainly are. Carwyn Jones has said that any money left over from tolls could go towards upgrading the existing M4 (in Wales) and Westminster Transport Minister Stephen Hammond (no doubt nudged by his civil servants) has said that no decisions (one way or the other) can yet be made over either bridge ownership or the bridge tolls.

The Severn Bridges and the tolls may be out or sight and out of mind to most Westminster ministers (and most MPs) but they loom large in the imagination (and the wallets) of long suffering commuters, businesses and visitors on a daily basis. Part of the problem is that our interests and those of our county are almost entirely peripheral to the Westminster mindset, something that does not help us very much especially the Welsh Government needs parliamentary time at Westminster because of the cobbled together devolutionary settlement.  

This sorry state of affairs has been aggravated because any concept of long term planning has been abandoned to the ‘free market’ as ‘taking the long view’ no longer fits  into the Westminster politicians mindset – this when combined with the current Welsh Governments craven lack of ambition merely makes things worse.

Differences of opinion between Wales and Westminster are not new and will continue as long as the devolutionary fudge continues to exist. Even the Welsh Conservatives have called for control of the Severn Bridges to reside in the hands of the Welsh people. Labour in Wales, has reluctantly said the same thing, although whether or not they would have called for control of the Severn bridges to be passed to Wales if Labour was in power at Westminster is another matter. 

In 2012 a report for the Welsh government suggested that abolishing the tolls would increase traffic by an estimated 12% - equivalent to about 11,000 vehicles a day – and that businesses and commuters forked out around £ 80 million pounds a year crossing the Severn bridges. Studies into the impact of the Severn Bridge Tolls on our economy are nothing new.

Before that back in October 2010, Professor Peter Midmore's independent economic study of the Severn Bridge tolls which has recommended that the revenues should stay in Wales, once the crossings revert to public hands. This study of 122 businesses was commissioned by the Federation of Small Businesses revealed that the tolls had a negative impact on 30% of firms in South Wales, this compared with 18% in the Greater Bristol area.

While noting that the economic impact was not substantial for most, the 2010 study found that transport; construction and tourism-related companies reliant on regular crossings suffered increased costs and reduced competitiveness. The 2010 study found that Welsh businesses were unfairly penalised by the tolls and concluded that the money should be shared with the Assembly Government and used to improve Wales’ roads and public transport. Under the current stitch up, once the cost of the Second Severn Crossing is paid off less on-going maintenance costs (now potentially sometime in 2018 due to a drop in road usage) then a potentially handy revenue stream may revert swiftly to Treasury coffers in Westminster. 

The various studies are useful, but, to be honest are all grist to the mill, as we are still waiting for any decision to be made in regard to the Severn Bridger tolls and the future ownership of the Severn Bridges themselves. None of this will bring a crumb of comfort to the commuters who are already bracing themselves to face yet another bridge toll rise on January 1^st 2013. We have had plenty of talk but little sign of any concrete action or a decision, one way or the other and come January 1^st 2014 . 

NOW THAT'S AN INTERESTING IDEA...

I for one very warmly welcome Professor Peter Midmore's independent economic study of the Severn Bridge tolls which has recommended that the revenues should stay in Wales, once the crossings revert to public hands. The study for the Welsh Affairs Select Committee at Westminster, which is looking at the impact the tolls on Wales amongst other things.

The Professor's study found that Welsh businesses were unfairly penalised by the tolls and concluded that the money should be shared with the Assembly Government and used to improve Wales’ roads and public transport. Under the current stitch up (sorry set-up), once the cost of the Second Severn Crossing is paid off (by 2014 or 2016) the revenue stream will revert straight to Treasury coffers in Westminster.

The study of 122 businesses commissioned by the Federation of Small Businesses found the tolls had a negative impact on 30% of firms in South Wales, compared with 18% in the Greater Bristol area. While noting that the economic impact was not substantial for most, the study found that transport, construction and tourism-related companies reliant on regular crossings suffered increased costs and reduced competitiveness.

There are also concerns, if not fears that the bridge tolls, which currently range from £5.50 for a car to £16.40 for a heavy goods vehicle (HGV), may stop the development of small-to-medium-sized business in the areas surrounding the bridges.The study 's findings which come only a few weeks after the private company running the bridges blamed growing unemployment and a rise in the cost of fuel on a 20% drop in traffic in the past two years.

Severn River Crossings plc further warned that unless traffic levels pick up, then it could take longer to pay off the cost of the second bridge – delaying the handover of the bridges to public ownership until as late as 2018.

The study, which will be submitted as evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, which is conducting a cross-party inquiry into the economic impact of the tolls and the future of the bridges. concludes that its “highly unlikely” the tolls will be abolished even when the bridges revert to public ownership.

The private company that runs the Severn Toll Bridges (and we can thank the Tories for that) managed to raise around 226m over the last three years (up to June 2010) yet barely spent £15m on essential maintenance on the original crossing's damaged cables. That the bridge tolls have been used used as little more than a cash cow, to fleece bridge user should come as not much of a surprise to many people.

Plaid Cymru's South Wales Central AM Chris Franks, (in June 2010) used the Freedom of Information Act to show the significant difference between the large amounts of money raised by Severn River Crossing plc from the toll, and the relatively small amount being spent on treating the damage to the cables on the old crossing. His FOI request revealed that (since 2006) some £15m has been spent on main cable work on the first Severn Crossing (the M48 bridge). The Highways Agency suggested that another £5.8m worth of maintenance will take place over the next five years.

This despite the fact that some £225,733,000 has been collected in bridge toll revenue since 2006. People may well begin to wonder if they are going to get saddled with major work to maintain the bridges after the toll profits have been siphoned off by the concessionary company when the bridges are finally returned to public ownership in 2014 or 2016.

The knowledge that Severn River Crossings plc may, due to falls in traffic levels, take even longer to pay off the cost of the second bridge, thus delaying the eventual handover of the bridges to public ownership until as late as 2018, will bring little comfort to bridge users facing yet another annual increase in the Severn bridge tolls in January 2011.

Yet, despite persistent bleating from Westminster sheep over the years along the lines of there is nothing we can do to reduce or stabilise the tolls! It turns that this is or was not quite true as the last New Labour Government actively intervened in October 2009 in relation to the Humber Bridge.

Sadiq Khan, the then New Labour Minister of Transport, announced a grant of £6m to the Humber Bridge company, saying that, “the Government was committed to doing everything it can to protect communities and businesses from economic downturn and help the country to recover. That is why I decided not to accept the Humber Bridge board’s proposed toll increases”. Very nice - but if that's the case in England, then why not in Wales?

Admittedly the Severn Bridges straddle the Welsh English border something that may complicate the issue of ownership with the tolls on the newer bridge being collected in Wales, and the older one being collected in England. Additionally the questionably worded concessionary agreement (and the Act of Parliament) which enables the tolls to go up each January may also have something to do with it.

One key question that no one appears to be asking or answering is what will happen to the tolls once the concession expires or ends. Will the bridge and the tolls simply revert back to the Department of Transport? Or might a portion of the tolls end up filtering down to the National Assembly, by default or as a result of central government indifference. Will the National Assembly act as merely as a local agent for the Department of Transport? Or is total control of the revenue

If it the whole package ended with the National Assembly, then if the current tolls were halved then, what could be accomplished by using a percentage to cover maintenance of the bridge and using the remainder of the toll for ring fenced capital projects – such as new integrated transport systems, reopening railway lines, funding tram systems and investing in rail freight – which would be far more beneficial for all of us in Wales than the finance disappearing into the Westminster coffers or being used to bail out the bankers?