Miss no changes
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE FREIGHT Transport Association will need to step up its campaign for the abolition of tolls on bridges and tunnels if it is to convince the Government of the need to change its policy.
This was clear last week when Transport Under Secretary Lynda Chalker told an ETA meeting in London that tolls would continue to operate as the Government considers it unfair for the ratepayer to subsidise someone else's crossings.
Several FTA members had alerted Mrs Chalker to the high costs imposed by using crossings like the Dartford Tunnel.
But it also is clear that the Government has no intention of entending tolls to finance new roads. Mrs Chalker told the ETA that such a system may have had potential many years ago, but there is no case for it today.
A clear hint that the Government will abandon plans to introduce tolls on to British roads came last week, when she told MPs: "It seems that we might be in the danger that France has experienced if we were to introduce tolls now."
The French Government has had to bale out the French companies who bought the main French motorways because they have gone bankrupt.
Introducing tolls might simply drive much of the traffic off the new roads on to unsuitable roads, she warned. There were other methods of financing new roads than tolls she said.