Campaigners are celebrating the end of the “tax on Wales” after it was announced that the toll on the Severn crossing, paid by only by motorists entering Wales across the Bristol channel, will be scrapped next year.
The toll has been in place since the first Severn Bridge was opened in 1966. The charge on the new crossing, opened in 1996, is £6.70 for cars, £13.40 for vans and minibuses, and £20 for buses and lorries.
Theresa May promised in this year’s general election campaign to abolish the charge, as did all the big parties.
Alun Cairns, the Wales secretary, confirmed the agreement yesterday. “The decision . . . sends a powerful message to businesses, commuters and tourists alike that the UK government is committed to strengthening the Welsh economy,” he said.
Ending tolls for the 25 million journeys between England and Wales made every year would boost the economy of south Wales by £100 million a year, Mr Cairns said, although a government report in January predicted that even cutting the toll in half would mean a 17 per cent rise in traffic along the M4.
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Lee Waters, Labour AM for Llanelli, warned that abolishing the toll would result in more congestion and disruption for drivers. “The Department for Transport’s best guess — and nobody really knows — is the amount of traffic will go up somewhere between 12 and 20 per cent,” he told BBC Radio Wales.
On Thursday the government scrapped plans for the electrification of the main rail line between Cardiff and Swansea. Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, tweeted about the toll change: “This is nothing but a desperate attempt . . . to distract from the U-turn on electrification to Swansea.”
Edmund King, president of the AA, welcomed the news, saying: “At last the tax on Wales is being abolished.”
Nicholas Lyes, roads policy spokesman for the RAC, said: “We would encourage the government to look at reducing or abolishing other tolls to help motorists feeling the squeeze.”