Scrap Humber Bridge tolls in 2017 and councils will pay price

The cost of abandoning the £1.50 toll charge to encourage people to visit the city, would have to be shouldered by four cash-strapped authorities who have a legal responsibility to foot the bridge’s maintence and debt costs, the Yorkshire Post has learnt.

Two Labour MPs, Great Grimsby respresentative Melanie Onn and Hull North’s Diana Johnson have both said the Government should consider freezing the charge.

Ms Johnson has said it would be ‘another way of encouraging people to visit the city’, while Ms Onn wrote in a leter to MPs that a temporary removal of the tolls could ease ‘the burden of movement’ between both sides of the river.

However Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole, Andrew Percy, said the tolls bring in the money needed to maintain the bridge and pay off its long-standing debt, and there is no other way of generating income.

To make the most of the City of Culture, he suggested Hull City Council should instead change its parking tariffs so it’s free for a couple of hours, and with no charge at all at the weekend.

He said: “It would be a lovely thing to do, but it would cost millions of pounds. The Bridge Board is responsible for the debt repayment and maintenance costs and the new Bridge Act means if they don’t pay it, that money has to come from the local councils.”

The tolls bring in £15m a year, and this money goes into the maintenence and serving a significant debt.

Since East Riding, Hull City, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire councils helped form the Bridge Board in 2011, they are now ultimately responsible for those costs being met, and would have to split the bill four ways.

Peter Hill, Bridgemaster and general manager of the Humber Bridge, said: “We are aware of the suggestion to suspend tolls during 2017, the year that Hull is European City of Culture. We can’t comment on the calls but I would be concerned at our inability to both service our debt agreements and carry out essential maintenance on the structure if the tolls, which are our only source of income, were suspended.”