London Banter - View Single Post

JNugent[_5_] · October 8th 12, 03:10 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.rec.driving

On 08/10/2012 11:29, d wrote:

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 10:52:05 +0100
"tim....." wrote:
entirely satisfactory. Most seem to work on a pre-payment "honesty" basis

I like the idea of that. Let the mugs pay and the rest of us drive over
the bridge that was paid for by tolls in 2003 after which Lying Labour said
the tolls would be removed. Naturally, being a cash cow they weren't.
And the tunnel was paid for by central government as per the rest of the road
system and should never have had tolls in the first place.

Actually, the first tunnel (and later, the second one) was paid for by the
ratepayers of Essex and Kent, with the tolls offsetting some of that (in the
early days, there was nowhere near the traffic there is nowadays).

The crossing (then consisting only of the tunnels) was peremptorily taken
over by the government and leased to Trafalgar House, who had promised to
build the bridge and improve the A282 access road, in return for the right to
collect a formula-calculated amount in tolls (which has now been collected,
with the crossing reverting to the government.

It *ought* to have reverted to Essex and Kent, and those counties should be
able to either abolish the tolls, or set the charges and use the proceeds to
offset council tax.