TOLLS on the Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry will not have to be raised for the time being.

The Government has agreed to provide £1.6m to Cornwall Council and Plymouth City Council to cover some of the shortfall caused by the impact of Covid 19.

Proposals to increase toll prices by 40p and reduce the Tag discount at the beginning of next year will now not need to go ahead.

Each council will receive £821,553 from the compensation scheme set up by the Government to help local authorities deal with the impact of the coronavirus up to July 2020. A further application for a second tranche of funding to cover the remainder of the financial year’s losses is also anticipated to be successful.

Welcoming news of the funding, Councillor Geoff Brown, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for Transport, and Councillor Mark Coker, Plymouth City Council’s cabinet member for Strategic Transport, Planning and Highways, said: “The additional funding for the crossings is very good news and we would like to thank the Government for recognising the seriousness of the financial situation we were facing.

“We had not expected to have to introduce any further changes until at least 2023. Unfortunately, the first lockdown resulted in a major drop in the levels of traffic at both crossings, whilst services and maintenance continued. With income continuing to be lower than anticipated pre-Covid, the organisation’s reserves were depleted and we were facing a growing financial deficit.”

Both joint authorities had been pressing Government for financial help for the crossings to mitigate against the pandemic losses for some time. MP for South East Cornwall Sheryll Murray had also made representation on the matter: most recently last week in Parliament when she put it to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Tamar Crossings operate the Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry, together typically carrying around 18 million vehicles a year, with no subsidy either from central Government or from the local authorities.

But legislation does not allow the crossings to operate at a deficit, and so any shortfall in funding has to be covered by the parent authorities.

“We said at the start of the consultation that the decision to revise prices could be halted at any stage if circumstances changed,” said Saltash councillor Sam Tamlin, Cornwall Joint Chair of the Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry Joint Committee.

“The £1.6 million funding covers nearly three-quarters of the loss of income up to the end of July and enables us to avoid an end-of-year deficit and defer an immediate increase. In the meantime we will need to constantly monitor traffic levels and income to assess the ongoing effects of the pandemic on our finances.”

Tamar Crossings says that its consultation during the past few weeks has generated useful information on people’s views of the tag discount and travel behaviours. Early indications show that more people anticipate working from home and travelling less by car in the future.

“The results of the consultation suggest that we may well see a long-term reduction in traffic levels as a result of Covid-19 and changing travel behaviours even without further lockdowns,“ said Cllr Tamlin, “and this would inevitably have an impact on our future income.

“We will be keeping the situation under constant review and will be using the breathing space provided by the Government funding to look at the future structure of charges and secure the long term future of the crossings ".

One of the funding options being pursued is securing a financial contribution from Highways England towards the maintenance of the bridge.

A case is also being drafted for why the Government should support the ferry crossing as a strategic link to South East Cornwall and Plymouth.