Tory MP’s Blackwall Tunnel toll petition threatens Greenwich with gridlock

Updated story: A Tory MP has launched a petition to scrap planned tolls on the Blackwall Tunnel – a move that would risk swamping Greenwich with traffic and could send Transport for London’s finances into further turmoil.

Louie French, the MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, claimed the toll – which was approved in 2018 by Grant Shapps and was first proposed under Conservative mayor Boris Johnson 11 years ago – was “the latest anti-motorist policy being launched by Sadiq Khan”.

The tunnel will be tolled when the adjacent Silvertown Tunnel opens in 2025, with drivers charged to use both tunnels. 

The charge is to pay off the £2 billion cost of the new tunnel and control traffic levels at the new crossing, which will share a common approach road through Greenwich, Charlton and Blackheath.

TfL hopes the charge will reduce the “induced demand” seen when new roads open, when drivers take advantage of the convenience of a new route to make a journey they may not have made before.

It is not clear whether French, whose petition is hosted on his website, wants to remove the Silvertown Tunnel toll as well. TfL has always stated that both tunnels need to be tolled for the charge to work. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Abandoning the toll would also mean TfL having to find the cost of the tunnel from its own funds at a time when it is still recovering from the loss of fares during the pandemic. The tunnel is being built by a consortium, Riverlinx, which will be paid off with the proceeds from the toll. 

In 1969, when the Blackwall Tunnel expanded from one tunnel to two and the new approach road opened, rush-hour traffic levels doubled within a year – a statistic that haunts local critics of the Silvertown Tunnel, who fear it will increase congestion even with a toll. 

TfL hopes that by tolling both tunnels, drivers will opt to use public transport to cross the Thames instead.

While the proposed tolls have been public knowledge for more than a decade, when the tunnel was first proposed under Johnson’s mayoralty,  few news outlets reported on them until August, when the LondonWorld website ran a story implying that it was a new development.

Then last month, draft road signs appeared showing a £4 charge for cars between 6am and 10pm, prompting another flurry of stories implying the charge was new. TfL said at the time that the figures were just examples drawn up to test road sign designs. 

Tolling both tunnels has always been part of TfL’s proposals, both under Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan. A TfL document published in December 2012, when Johnson was mayor, said: “If the new crossing were not charged, then widespread congestion in the area is forecast, with the crossing resulting in much higher volumes of traffic in the surrounding area, which is already subject to congestion not directly related to Blackwall; currently the demand to cross at Blackwall in the peak direction is around 50% higher than the capacity of the tunnel.

“However with the new crossing and Blackwall both charged, there is the potential to manage traffic generation to ensure that any demand growth is constrained to a level appropriate to the network capacity.”

The public hearings into the tunnel during 2016 and 2017 – which went unreported by most London media – heard that TfL planned tolls to be comparable to the Dartford Crossing, which currently charges up to £2.50 for car drivers. 

The tunnel was approved in 2018 and a toll is included in the legislation for the new road, which was approved by Grant Shapps as transport secretary. But there is nothing in the new law to stop it being removed, and campaigners have long feared that a populist mayor could scrap tolls and effectively bring great swathes of east and southeast London to a standstill. 

The position of Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for mayor, is not yet known. 

Last year, London Assembly members – including Conservatives – called for Sadiq Khan to provide detailed and up-to-date modelling on what would happen if there was no toll. But Khan refused to provide figures saying that earlier work had “clearly demonstrated that not implementing a user charge would lead to increased traffic and congestion”.

“This is why the user charge, coupled with a substantial increase in cross river public transport, has always been a core part of the scheme and is central to achieving the scheme objectives,” he said.

A Labour assembly member, Elly Baker, mocked the call for more details on what would happen if a toll was scrapped. In comments that may come back to haunt her party, she said: “This is a situation that doesn’t exist. There will be a toll. There is no point modelling no toll.”

Earlier this week, Sian Berry, a Green Party assembly member, said that the tolls would be “the only thing holding back a tide of pollution and congestion”,

Greenwich Conservative leader Matt Hartley said he would rather see a discount for local drivers. He said: “Personally I think there is a third option that Transport for London should explore here, which is a local exemption from the tolls for both the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels for residents and businesses in the boroughs that are most affected – which means both Greenwich and Bexley on our side of the river. 

“Louie’s not wrong to highlight the additional burden that tolls will place on local people – now coming on top of Labour’s ULEZ and parking charge increases.  That’s why Greenwich Conservative councillors have been pressing for an exemption for local residents since all the way back in the 2015 consultation.”

Charlie Davis, the party’s candidate for Eltham & Chislehurst, said: ‘Sadiq Khan and the Labour Party are already hitting the poorest motorists in southeast London with the extension of ULEZ London-wide and Greenwich Labour’s introduction of emission-based parking charges. These regressive taxes do nothing but hit those who can least afford it the hardest. Given the lack of river crossings in the east of London, TfL and Sadiq Khan need to seriously explore offering exemptions for southeast Londoners from any potential toll.’

They may get some of their wish – in March 2017, before the tunnel was approved, TfL said that it planned to offer exemptions to people in Greenwich, Newham and Tower Hamlets on  jobseekers’ allowance and other benefits, along the lines of a scheme that already offers cut-price bus fares.

A TfL spokesperson told the Evening Standard: “As has been publicised for many years, once the Silvertown Tunnel opens, drivers must pay a user charge for using either the Blackwall or the Silvertown tunnel. This was proposed in 2012 and agreed with government ministers following a public examination of the proposals between October 2016 and April 2017.

“The exact charge levels for various types of vehicles using the new tunnel will be decided closer to the opening date. This user charge will pay for building and maintaining the tunnel – but its main purpose is to help us manage traffic levels. Any surplus revenue will be reinvested in London’s transport network.”

• The southbound Blackwall Tunnel will be closed again this weekend to allow for work on a flyover across the Silvertown Tunnel to be finished. From Monday, traffic leaving the Blackwall Tunnel onto the A102 will take a new route. Drivers are being asked to avoid the area while the 108 bus will be split in both directions to run between Stratford-Canning Town and North Greenwich-Lewisham.

Updated at 4.30pm to include comment from Greenwich Conservatives and a mention of TfL’s plan to give free usage of the tunnel to some drivers, and amended again on Monday to state that French did not respond to a request for comment.