Dartford Tolls - Please sign petition
http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/axethetax
This is from the Kent Messenger and needs 100,000 signatures to be sent to Parliament. It's about them hiking the prices on the Dartford tolls to £2 per car in November and then £2.50 in april each way.
The tunnel has already been paid for 3 times over and they are in the process of making 75% of their staff redundant so why should they put the prices up.
Anyway, please sign even though this may not affect you.
0
Comments
Down with all cheating swindlers.
Can we have a petition about rail fares too?
Done.
Thieving mothers.
The following comes from briefing note SN/BT/442 in the House of Commons Library:
In 1987 the then Conservative Government proposed an expansion of what was then the Dartford-Thurrock Tunnel under the Thames. It proposed using private finance to build a new bridge at Dartford which, along with the existing tunnel would become a single crossing. It legislated for this in 1987-88 and the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Act 1988 provided the primary legislation for the construction of the new bridge by a private company and for the Secretary of State to take control of the tunnels from Kent and Essex County Councils (to let to the private company as part of the concession). The new bridge and the existing tunnel have since been known, collectively, as the Dartford Crossing.46
The tolls were introduced primarily to pay for the costs of the bridge’s construction – that was achieved in 1999 – but the Labour Government used a separate part of the 1988 Act to permit the company to go on charging for a further three years in order to fund ‘future maintenance’ of the Crossing. Thus, in 2003 the ownership of the Crossing reverted back to the government and it replaced the toll with a road charge (still called a toll), under the provisions of section 167 of the Transport Act 2000. The tolls paid now are, therefore, tolls paid to the government. The local councils do not get any money from the toll. A 2009 FOI response from the Department for Transport explains their reasons for this.47
I think from that maybe it is an urban myth, in that what would stop once the building work was payed for was the private company's concession to charge a toll. All that's happened is that the right to charge the toll switched to the government. I've glanced through the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Act (1988), and can find no reference to tolls stopping on completion of construction-cost payments. It seems that either we've been duped, or we've duped ourselves.
Signed the petion. Lets hope the government will take note but I suspect not, as I think it is a ploy to maximise the price they can get when they sell the crossing.
The original maximum toll period
5Subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Schedule, where section 11(6) of this Act applies the period during which the Secretary of State may levy tolls is—
(a)where the appointment of the person appointed under that section to levy tolls comes to an end after the transfer date, the period beginning immediately after the termination of his appointment and ending at the end of the period of twenty years beginning with the transfer date; or
(b)in any other case, that period of twenty years;
and the period applicable in accordance with this paragraph is referred to below in this Part of this Schedule as the original maximum toll period.
Do that a few times and I will guarantee you'll get the desired results.
Ironic that a suggestion for "protest" should come from a Tottingham fan ;0)
Signed.
This latest hike is over the top. It is nothing more than money grabbing, especially at a time house holds and businesses are stretched.
The bridge at its inception was supposed to be free once the costs had been covered.
They've had the ability to do so but up till now had refused ... thereby causing traffic havoc at times when it could have been relieved.
Today is the first sign of common sense.