Details of Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnel tolling to be revealed after election

Details of the proposed tolls for the Blackwall Tunnel and the new Silvertown Tunnel will be announced in the days after the general election, The Greenwich Wire can reveal. 

Transport for London will begin a consultation into the charges, which are expected to come into effect once the Silvertown Tunnel opens, which is due to open next spring.

Drivers of cars and light vans can expect to pay £4 at peak times to use the two crossings, with a £1.50 off-peak and weekend charge, sources said. HGVs will be charged up to £10 per trip. Trips overnight will be free. TfL has refused to confirm the figures, although they are broadly in line with those on signs submitted for approval in April 2022.

Discounts for local businesses and low-income local residents are also planned.

A formal announcement has been held up by the law around the general election, which restricts public bodies such as TfL to making routine announcements. The Greenwich Wire understands the consultation could begin as early as next week and last until September. A final decision would be made in December.

TfL has said the tolls are needed to pay off the cost of the £2 billion crossing, which is being built and will be operated by a private company, Riverlinx. It also says the charges are needed to stop the tunnels – and neighbouring areas such as Greenwich, Poplar and Canning Town – being swamped with drivers.

Much of the construction work on the Silvertown Tunnel is complete and the road surface is due to be laid in the coming weeks, but research at City Hall has found that public awareness of the crossing, and the planned tolls, is still low.

Charges are included in the legislation allowing the new tunnel’s construction, but Greater London Authority sources said that TfL opted for a public consultation after being advised that whatever level was put forward could be subject to a legal challenge. 

Conservative councils including Bexley and Bromley tried to challenge the expansion to the ultra-low emission zone in the courts last year. ULEZ cameras have also been vandalised in an attempt to derail the clean-air measure, with campaigns being led through Facebook groups. One camera in Sidcup was blown up last December, damaging vehicles and properties.

“The anti-ULEZ campaign last year spooked the mayor’s office and there’s a concern that there will be a social media campaign along those lines,” one source said. 

“The timing for the consultation is quite late, but we only had legal advice that we needed another consultation in April,” they added.

There is no explicit demand for a public consultation in the legislation that governs the new tunnel. Bexley and Bromley are among the 11 boroughs – plus the City of London and National Highways – that need to be consulted about tunnel charges and changes to them. But the law also says that TfL needs to consult with “organisations it considers representative of regular users of the tunnels”.

Tory mayor Boris Johnson included tolls on both crossings when he put forward plans for the Silvertown Tunnel, which will link Greenwich Peninsula with the Royal Docks, more than a decade ago. Labour’s Sadiq Khan continued with them when he succeeded Johnson in 2016.

However, there has long been unhappiness at the prospect of tolling, particularly as crossings in west London remain free. Despite the tolls being initiated by a Tory mayor, the party’s candidate in Bexleyheath & Crayford, Mark Brooks, said on social media last month that he “would never support Blackwall tolls”. His colleague in Greenwich & Woolwich, Jonny Goff, has campaigned for free access for locals instead.

Those who live in Dartford or Thurrock can pay £20 for unlimited use of the Dartford Crossing. Asked in October last year by Labour’s Len Duvall about discounts for those living near the Silvertown Tunnel, Sadiq Khan said: “What we do not want is those least able to pay the toll – those who need it the most – not being able to use it.”

The Blackwall Tunnel has been free since it opened in 1897. A second tunnel opened in 1967 to deal with congestion, but traffic levels soared again, doubling between 1968 and 1969. TfL has said the tolls are needed to stop this happening with the new tunnel.

However, tunnel opponents fear that Blackwall and Silvertown tolls would simply push traffic towards Rotherhithe Tunnel and Tower Bridge – a key factor in Lewisham and Southwark councils’ longstanding opposition to the crossing – or the Woolwich Ferry.

There has long been speculation on what the expected tolls would be; last year Khan warned in a letter to the government appealing for help with funding discounts that a single crossing could cost £5.25 for a car at peak times, with lorries paying more. 

When TfL was applying for permission to build the road eight years ago it was expected to be £3 for cars – more expensive than the Dartford crossing – to stop traffic diverting from Essex and Kent. That toll has stayed at a maximum £2.50 for cars for the past decade.

Under Johnson, the Silvertown Tunnel was explicitly designed as a route for HGVs, with a lane reserved in each tunnel for HGVs and buses, and a number of plans for distribution depots appeared following the tunnel’s approval in 2018.

However, under Khan, more emphasis has been placed more on the buses that will share the lane, and the suggested £10 charge for HGVs is higher than the £8.50 mooted on early drafts of road signs.

The Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition said that a London-wide road charging scheme would remove the need for charges at the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels.

It said: “An isolated new toll on Blackwall and Silvertown forces east and southeast Londoners to pay for a previously free crossing to remove new pollution that is being imposed on them by this new scheme. The tolls compensate TfL for the construction costs of a scheme which does not benefit them. TfL have failed to give evidence of any economic benefits at all from opening the Silvertown Tunnel. 

“Instead we support repurposing the scheme for public transport, cargo bikes, and active travel, which will help to reduce carbon emissions and local pollution, instead of increasing it.

“Fair and secure Londonwide road charging based on vehicle emissions to reduce traffic in line with the mayor’s 2030 net zero target would be sufficient to remove existing congestion at Blackwall Tunnel. “

A TfL spokesperson said: “We do not comment on speculation. Details about the proposed level of user charge and proposals for a set of discounts and exemptions – including for people on low incomes in the local area – will be confirmed in due course, ahead of the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel in 2025. 

“The main purpose of introducing a user charge for the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels is to manage traffic effectively and deliver the expected environmental and economic benefits. It was first proposed in 2012 and forms part of the development consent for the Silvertown Tunnel, which was approved by the Secretary of State for Transport in 2018.”