Humber Bridge: act o Faith or indulgent folly
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It cost £87m and is the longest single bridg of its kind in the world. Was it worth it? Savage tolls may cancel out fuel saved for some operators, usage is down on early predictions, yet discount plans are afoot. Humberside economy may get a boost, an in 20 years someone could say 'Thank Go we built it'. Alan Millar reports
HUMBER BRIDGE has been in a offing for around a century, d now that the £87m bridge — a longest single-span suspenin bridge in the world — is en to traffic, many are still king if it really was worth all 5 bother,
Nith Hull plugged into the tional motorway network, and a unrestrained growth of the 60s now little more than a amory, perhaps the whole ng is just an expensive and derused folly .. . a monument false hopes.
History may possibly prove at to be the case, but the Idge is here to stay, and -mer Transport Minister Barra Castle, whose January 1966 '-election promise that a Idge would be built led to this ar's opening, is as convinced ever that the bridge is a good aa.
She might just as well still ve been Transport Minister — aybe even Queen — when she dressed a Chartered Institute Transport seminar in Hull last )nth. For one thing, she came Hull.
Norman Fowler, her coun'part in the present Governrt and probably the most dical Transport Secretary ice Mrs Castle, was scheduled put in an appearance, but ither he nor Junior Minister ,nrieth Clarke could escape the assures of urgent Commons siness, and the field was open ^ Mrs Castle to spread her wthern political charm.
Yes, she had seen other idges, but playing to the galy, she had them clapping in 3 aisles when she said: "By mparison with the Humber idget the Golden Gates of San rcisco is a tatty little bridge th the gilt coming off."
She believes in the bridge as Jch today as she did at that ill North by-election, when bour was limping along with a mmons majority of one seat. en from the safe quasi-isolafi of her seat in the European rliament, Mrs Castle denies 3t the bridge was a bribe.
It fitted in, she says with the Ins of the Department of EcoImic Affairs — George Brown's ort-lived stepping stone to wards the white heat of Harold Wilson's technological revolution — to cope with a 15m growth in Britain's population by 2001.
In the few weeks in which she had been Transport Minister, she was determined to alter the conservative ways of the Ministry which indulged in reactive road building, building new roads to clear the bottlenecks on existing ones.
That meant that more and more traffic arteries were being built from north to south, and nothing was being done to create developments elsewhere.
Mrs Castle believed that transport could be used as an arm of regional development, and that is where the Humber Bridge came along. The extra 15m had to go somewhere else, and Humberside and Severnside seemed ideal areas to develop. But you couldn't create one region on either side of the estuary, and waste resources by duplicating the facilities needed to support that region.
It took from that election promise until 1969 for Peter Shore, then Economics Minister, to give a final go-shead for the project, which then was to cost £23m. When financing of the bridge had to be settled, a Conservative Government was in power, but in the pre-oil crisis days, its policies were still sympathetic towards a white hot future, and Environment Secretary Peter Walker agreed a 75 per cent loan in 1971. The remainder would be met by the Humber Bridge Board.
That meant tolls, and the inflation which has ripped through our society in the last ten years has meant that those tolls have had to be set at an almost crippling level, In 1964, when plans for the bridge were still being pushed before Government Ministers, CM reported that lorries would be charged 14s (70p), yet the Board has been forced, by a combination of high interest rates and pessimistic traffic forecasts, to make the heaviest lorries pay £7.50 a time. It could even go up to £8 without reference to Mr Fowler.
The arithmetic which led up to the tolls is simple. The Severn Bridge — part of the motorway network and not even in a development area — was 100 per cent Government-financed in the early 1960s when Treasury interest rates ran at between four and seven per cent, This bridge got Government loans at interest rates of up to 17 per cent, and private sector loans of up to 20 per cent. And, on top of that, the Bridge Board has been working on decreased expectations.
In 1971, the Department of the Environment forecast 31,000 vehicles a day on the bridge this year; by 1976, this was down to 24,000; and the bridge has opened against a background of a predicted use by 4,000 a day now, 10,000 a day in 1983, and 14,000 in 1990.
The toll-free Ouse Bridge en the M62 — the Humber Bridge's rival — carries 22,000 vehicles a day.
Reality is not quite so bad. In its first two weeks, when, admittedly, some have been attracted by the "cathedral effect" of the bridge, 323,000 cars, 1,800 buses and coaches, and 6,000 lorries have used the bridge. It can't stay that high — around the level
of the Ouse Bridge — but tbi signs are that the bridge clot. offer advantages. .
As far as commercial vehi operators are concerned, tho advantages vary according the circumstances in which th run their businesses. Freig Transport Association Northe 1 regional controller Bob Cro says it has worked for Berg Paints, who have combined thei North and South Humbersidi deliveries into one operation. Yet, Fraser Menzies, the FT,04: East Riding chairman sees advantage for his own Reçkl and Colman transport servic based on Leeds and Nottin ; ham. He won't re-route his ye : from the A1/M1 route. .
In general, if a lorry or b operator wants to go from H 1 to Grimsby or Immingham, t savings in mileage — 52 mil from Hessie on the North side 6 Barton on the south — will out weigh the toll charges, or if, lik Berger, he can combine de liveries on both sides, the bridii is a bonus. But he is unlikely fi be attracted to it if his journey:
e more westerly.
Freightliner is looking for ore business for its Hull terrain, which has been living on irrowed time since 1976. Manling director Cyril Bleasdale is rnfident that he stands a good lance of getting the three per nt of the 100,000 freight units :enable on South Humberside hich could save the terminal. He has given the terminal :other three years to save it but admits that the extra tchment area offered by the idge could be larger still if the Ils weren't so punitive.
The question is, though, what n be done about the tolls? Barra Castle spares no time in ying the Government ought to se the burden placed on the -idge Board. The difference in Ills between Severn and imber is "positively indecent" ie says.
But she is unrepentant about icing tolls on estuarial cross]s. "It's not a question of prinile, but practicality," she said, d pointed out that the Wilson ivernment did even consider arging tolls on motorways len the main effort was to get first 1,000 miles of motorway ilt in the country.
it was abandoned as a practiI plan because the elaborate secondary road network would have demanded a tremendous number of toll booths.
On the other hand, bridge tolls are different. "Sorry, but they are sitting targets. You're there and you're trapped," she said, and added that it was only fair to make the user pay some contribution out of the savings they make. Mrs Castle's down-toearth economics were at their best when she laid it on the line: "Eighty-seven million quid doesn't grow on gooseberry bushes, I'm telling you."
And it is that elementary combination of economics and horticulture which will dictate future Governments' policies. Asked by Yorkshire Licensing Authority John Carpenter whether a future Labour administration would abolish tolls, Hull East MP John Prescott, an Opposition transport spokesman said: "I'd be a damn liar if I said we would."
He sees a future Socialist transport policy in which the main emphasis will be upon public transport investment and support. The South Yorkshire example, which mirrors Continental practice, will be the mould for the rest of the country, and many of the fruits of Barbara Castle's gooseberry bushes will be needed to make that work. He would like to see an end to tolls, especially on the Humber, but recognises that their removal in his home city would create a precedent to be followed on every other toll crossing in the country.
That would leave the Government with a bill of, say, £1 bn, and it would be an idiotic politician who would say today that he would rather use a scarce £1 Ion for that when it might be poured into British Rail or bus support.
Other crossings — and there cannot be many on a scale comparable with the Humber — built in the future may well be tollfree, but things look likely to stay the same on Humberside.
The Bridge Board will plug away at having something done about its debt, and meantime it is receptive to any constructive suggestions about how it can maximise its revenue. It does recognise that the level of commercial vehicle traffic could be greater if the E7.50 toll came down, at least for regular users, and it may not be raising hopes falsely to suggest that an annual season ticket will be introduced.
At present, operators can get a five per cent discount if they buy books of 20 toll vouchers, and having conceded operators' and unions' demands that feceipt: be issued for individual jour neys, it has shown its mind is fa from closed. Cyril Bleasdale adamant that lorry tolls coulr come down by about 30 pe cent. Fraser Menzies wants the discount to be increased fron five to 50 per cent. Perhaps, ca tolls could go up to compensate There are other ideas, too British Rail has found that a two part tariff — as with its railcard: — works, as users feel they an getting good value for money ly paying a flat rate plus somethinc marginal to cover the cost o additional, casual journeys.
And tourist traffic can also b( attracted to the bridge. Here, th( "cathedral effect" can be capital ised on. John Prescott wants the land around one side of th( bridge to be developed for lei sure purposes, so that visitor: don't just come and look at th( bridge, but cross it as well.
Transport and Genera Workers Union road transpor commercial group secretan Jack Ashwell congratulated hi: native Hull's municipal transpor department for running bu: tours across the bridge, as thi: helps bring income to bridge and city.
It was probably Jack Ashwe who summed up the positiv, way ahead, when he told th, Hull forum: "The time has corn to stop the debate for an against the bridge. It is in th interests of both sides of induF, try to support the bridge an new projects associated with it. He wants to see the roads linkin, the bridge brought up to higher standard, and for th long-term dream of a thin north/south trunk route to b. routed via the bridge.
He believes that, especially h the climate of recession, haulier will suffer from more competi tion on Humberside, as th bridge makes it possible for one time Yorkshiremen ant Lincolnshire men to compete fo scarce business.
But in the long term, th, bridge should boost Humber side's economy — Datsun ma: move to Kirmington, Soutl Humberside, on the strength a access to rail facilities at Hull and hauliers will welcome th, day the bridge was built. Johr Prescott says much the same "In 20 years, some will sa, 'thank God we put it there'."
Time will tell whether tha faith is any more accurate thar the optimism which led to the bridge being built.