In short:
- Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels will be tolled from 2025. Sadiq Khan has suggested the toll could be as much as £5.25
- Two Tory councillors in Greenwich want local drivers to have free access. Their motion is unlikely to be backed by their 52 Labour counterparts.
- Toll levels will be announced next year, but are likely to be higher than those at Dartford.
Greenwich borough residents should be exempted from the new tolls for the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels, two Conservative councillors have declared.
Drivers will be charged a toll for both crossings when the Silvertown Tunnel opens in 2025 as part of plans approved by the government seven years ago.
The charge is in place to pay back the £2 billion cost of the new tunnel’s construction and also as an attempt to prevent induced demand – a phenomenon where new roads built to beat congestion quickly fill up and become congested themselves, along with the surrounding area.
Greenwich’s opposition leader, Matt Hartley, and his fellow Tory Pat Greenwell have submitted a motion for next week’s council meeting calling for charges to be axed for residents in Greenwich and other boroughs near the new tunnel.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has said the charge could be as high as £5.25 at peak times for car drivers. Discounts for low-income drivers in Greenwich, Newham and Tower Hamlets have long been planned.
“An exemption for local residents would be an appropriate recompense for the impact of the construction of the Silvertown Tunnel on Greenwich and the other boroughs most affected,” Hartley and Greenwell say in their motion.
“An exemption for local small businesses would ensure our borough’s local economy receives the maximum possible benefit from the Silvertown Tunnel’s opening up of new markets across the river, particularly important given the impact the Mayor of London’s expanded ULEZ charges have had on many businesses locally.”
The two councillors want Anthony Okereke, Greenwich Council’s leader, to write to Sadiq Khan to ask him to model the impact of such an exemption.
It would take an unprecedented revolt among Greenwich’s 52 Labour councillors for the motion to pass, but Okereke will have to decide whether to respond with his own motion or simply to throw out the Tories’ demand.
Hartley and Greenwell also say that Khan needs to improve public transport links through the new tunnel, which will only be served by two buses from the outset – one of which will only serve a handful of stops on the edge of Greenwich borough. They are likely to find more common ground here, with Labour councillors long unhappy with TfL’s services in the borough.
Tolls are likely to be set higher than the rates at Dartford to deter drivers from outside the capital from choosing a route through London instead of the M25. Car drivers are charged up to £2.50 at Dartford, with goods vehicles charged up to £6.
However, all drivers in Dartford and Thurrock are entitled to discounts, with charges capped at £20 each year. For the Silvertown and Blackwall Tunnels, there has long been a plan to only offer discounts to drivers on low incomes in the three neighbouring boroughs.
The Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnel charge was originally mooted at £3 when Transport for London was applying for permission to build the new road seven years ago. But last month Khan, London’s Labour mayor and an enthusiastic supporter of the new road, said in a letter appealing for government help with the discount that charges could be as much as £5.25 at peak times. The government declined his request.
Councils including Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark fear that if the tolls are set too high, then routes to the Rotherhithe Tunnel would suffer a big increase in traffic.
Details of tolls are not due to be announced until next year, but are set to become a political football as the mayoral election approaches next May.
Opponents of the tunnel, who fear that it will bring new congestion to the area even with a charge, have long worried that a populist mayor could abolish the charge altogether.
And despite the potential consequences for residents of his neighbouring borough, Louie French, the Tory MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup, has called for the tolls to be scrapped. Susan Hall, the Conservatives’ candidate to be mayor, has not said whether she backs the toll being removed.
When the issue came up in last month’s council meeting, Okereke said he would “not be joining the Conservatives on anything”, but did not directly address a residents’ discount.
“More importantly we support tolls on both tunnels [because] the lack of tolling would see more more transport come through into the borough,” he said. “We must protect this borough from air pollution. We want clean air. If you are not willing to stand up for it, this council and the majority group will.”
Tunnelling work between Silvertown and the Greenwich Peninsula has been completed and the bores are now being fitted out.
Work is also continuing on entrance buildings on both sides of the Thames and the road network that will connect the Silvertown Tunnel to the Blackwall Tunnel approach and Tidal Basin Roundabout on the north side.
TfL documents released last week revealed that the worksite at Silvertown has had to deal with a spate of thefts, while part of an old footbridge collapsed onto the pavement while it was being removed from the Greenwich side during a closure of the area.
A worker also suffered a crushed thumb while loading six-tonne bearing plates on site. Both that incident and the footbridge collapse were both reported to the Health and Safety Executive.
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