THE SEVERN BRIDGE TOLLS

It would be nice if the Severn Bridge tolls could scraped, as have all the bridge tolls in Scotland. The problem is not that the bridges span (mostly)  a border that lies between two administrative areas - handing control of both bridges to the National Assembly in 2018 could easily solve that problem. 

The real problem that hard pressed commuters face is that the Department for Transport is already (no doubt) looking at any toll revenues and thinking of milking the bridge tolls for all that it can squeeze out of them (less maintenance costs). The lack of a direct rail connection between the Ebbw valley and Newport also means that most (potential commuters to Bristol and beyond) have little choice but to drive to work. 

This oversight (if it can be called that) may reflect successive Welsh Governments ignoring the economic realities that drive a significant number of Welsh residents to make the long daily commute across the Severn Bridges. The day the tolls are significantly reduced or removed cannot come soon enough.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR (NOT)!

No end in sight for Tolls!

The UK (Westminster) Government has announced (via a written answer in Westminster) that commuters and drivers using the Severn Crossings will get hit by an inflation-busting toll rise of 3.3%. From January 1st cars crossing the Severn bridges on the M4 and M48 crossings will pay £6.20 – up from £6 this year. Stephen Hammond, the Con Dem Transport minister also revealed that the charge for vans and minibuses crossing the bridges will rise from £12.10 to £12.40 (2.5%) and from £18.10 to £18.60 (2.8%) for lorries and coaches.

The new toll levels will be confirmed in an order made by the Secretary of State in December While the Westminster Government has been happy to subsidize the Humber Bridge, which had its tolls reduced by 50% nothing has been done to reduce the impact of tolls on commuters, motorists and small to medium sized businesses based in Wales. Whether we have a New Labour or a Conservative run Government it should be pretty clear that Wales or Welsh interests are unimportant.

Barely a year ago, a major cross-party report revealed that the Severn Crossings had a yearly income of £72 million pounds but running costs of just £15 million pounds. The Welsh Affairs committee recommended that with tolls as low as £1.50 for the bridge to be self-financing.  Meanwhile in Scotland, tolls on the Skye Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge have all been scrapped.

The new toll increase have been revealed less than a fortnight after Labour in Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones demanded talks to transfer control over the Severn Bridge tolls to the Welsh Government. The UK Government ignored the First Minister and publically stated that there would be no change to ownership agreements which will see control of the bridges and the lucrative income from the Severn crossings go back into UK Treasury. News that the First Minister has half an eye on the income from the tolls which might be used to improve the M4 (and maintain the crossings) will bring no comfort to commuters and businesses as it suggests that there will be no end to the tolls.

THANKS FOR NOTHING...

A report (produced by Arup - engineering consultants) on behalf of the Welsh Government has suggested that ditching the bridge tolls on the Severn Crossings could boost the economy of south Wales by £107 million. The report suggests that the removal of the tools could boost traffic flow by around an extra 11,000 vehicles driving over the two bridges every day. The Arup report says that businesses and consumers pay out around £ 80 million pounds a year to cross the Severn bridges.

The report looked at what would happen if the tolls were halved, increased by 50% or scrapped entirely. The total revenue brought in 2009 was £77.4 million pounds. A reduction in revenue if the toll was cut by around half (46%) could be around £36 million pounds a year (based on 2009 prices). An increase in the toll by around half (41%) would bring in an extra revenue of around another £36 million pounds per year. Either way any projected change in revenue (on paper) comes in is less than proportional to the change in toll because of either higher or lower traffic flows.

The tolls have been used to pay for their construction of the new bridge, and the maintenance and operation of both the old and the new bridge(s) via a concession agreement with Severn Crossings Plc.

The concession agreement currently in place ends at the point that the operator has raked in around £996 million pounds at 1989 prices (so we are talking about probably well over a cool £100 million pounds by 2018). The tolls are due to end in 2018 when the bridges will revert back to the UK Government.

Back in October (29012) the UK transport minister Stephen Hammond revealed that the government has substantial debts on the bridges which would to be repaid so the tolls would not cease to be collected.  Currently both the Severn Bridges are run by a private company, the concession agreement is due to run its course in 2018, at which point the bridges will return to government ownership. It had been suggested that once that concession agreement ran out, the bridge tolls might have dropped to around £1.50.

This, however, now appears not to be the case, the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Select Committee, was told that there would be no drop bridge tolls when the concession ends. Even though the bridges would come back into public ownership there were apparently "substantial government debts that needs to be repaid" from building and maintaining the river crossings amounting to around several hundred million pounds.

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee was told that the government has a deficit of at least £112 million left on the bridges covering items such as maintenance costs and the costs of "professional advice". The Department for Transport has stated that once the concessions ends the government will need to repay its own debts resulting from the building and maintenance of the bridges, and so tolls will continue after 2018.

Meanwhile the Labour in Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones has stated that control of the bridges should be transferred from the UK government to the Welsh government in 2018, he has so far refused to state say what a Welsh Government would do to the tolls. The Severn Crossings which are the main way in and out of South Wales carry an average daily traffic of about 80,000 vehicles. Bridge Tolls have been in place ever since the first Severn Bridge was constructed.

So there appears to be little chance that hard pressed commuters will see and end in sight to the tolls, whether they remain under the control of the Department of Transport (in London) or the Welsh Government (in Cardiff) – no doubt both potential inheritors of the tolls don’t want this cash cow to be put out to pasture.  So whether it looks like it will be one of our governments continuing to fleece us  and continue to the ramp up fat profits at our expense for the foreseeable future (after 2018). Thanks for nothing...

REDUCED BRIDGE TOLLS

A bridge with reduced tolls...

Motorcyclists took part in a midnight celebratory crossing of the Humber Bridge on Saturday after tolls for bikers were scrapped. Charges for cars have also been halved to £1.50. The reductions are expected to boost the region's economy by £250m. Local campaigners have long called for action to be taken on the bridge tolls and the local Grimsby Telegraph, together with its sister papers in Scunthorpe and Hull, has pressed for the charges to be scrapped or reduced to £1 for cars for many years through its ‘Axe The Toll On Health’ and ‘A Toll Too Far'campaigns. Last November, the Con Dem Government announced it would be prepared to write off £150 million of the bridge's £332 million debt to allow for tolls to be reduced in return for the Humber local authorities taking on a more equal share of the outstanding debt of £182 million. Nice if you can get it...