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Chepstow toll-call
Page 10
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• Environmentalists are Gang for road tolls in the Welsh border town of Chepstow to discourage truck drivers using it as a rat-run to avoid paying the fee to cross the Severn Bridge.
Although hauliers' associations dismissed the toll suggestion from Friends of the Earth Cymru, the pressure group insists the road-toll idea is workable.
The road used by drivers avoiding the toll is the A48, and Friends of the Earth have asked Monmouthshire County Council to carry out a feasibility study into the road-tolling scheme.
The group's transport spokesman, Neil Crumpton, says: "Road tolls would not only dissuade rat-running HGVs and non-local motorists at chosen times but they would also raise ring-fenced funds for public transport." Mike Farmer, the Road Haulage Association's regional officer for Wales and the SouthWest, says that fewer hauliers would use the Chepstow route if the Severn Bridge toll was lower.
He says: "The underlying problem is the level of the toll. At £13.50, it is such that many operators coming from the north will be tempted to get into Wales without paying it.
"We do think that motorways are the best place for lorries, but when there is a charge of £13.50 we also understand that operators on very tight margins will be tempted to avoid it. It is just too expensive."