A petition with more than 37,000 signatures calling for the scrapping of the proposed tolls on the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels was presented at City Hall on Thursday.
Toll charges of up to £4 per journey through the soon-to-open Silvertown Tunnel and the neighbouring 127-year-old Blackwall Tunnel were announced by Transport for London (TfL) last week.
The Silvertown Tunnel will open in the spring of next year, and will provide a new road crossing under the Thames between Silvertown and the Greenwich Peninsula.
TfL has said that once the new tunnel has opened, both the new and existing tunnels will incur a peak-time charge for cars of £4 per single crossing. At off-peak hours, the charge will be £1.50 and the tunnels will be free to access overnight between 10pm and 6am.
The charges are “designed to manage levels of traffic using the tunnels”, TfL has said, arguing that without them, “traffic would increase in both tunnels causing delays and congestion, which contribute to poorer air quality”.
The tolls are also being used to cover the tunnel’s £2bn construction cost and will go towards its maintenance.
But a petition started by Blackheath resident Liam Davis has urged mayor Sadiq Khan to scrap the proposed charges, saying that they “threaten to disrupt ordinary people’s way of life” and will “hurt families, individuals, and businesses who depend on these routes”.
The petition was formally presented at a City Hall meeting on Thursday by Reform UK’s London Assembly member, Alex Wilson.
Having now accrued more than 37,300 signatures, Mr Wilson said it was the biggest petition ever presented to the Assembly in its 24-year history.
He told the Standard: “The Blackwall Tunnel has been free to use for over 100 years, and now it’s going to cost, depending on what time of day you go, up to £8 per day, if you go in both directions - and that’s another charge, tax, whatever you want to call it, on hard-working Londoners.”
Responding to TfL’s point about the need to stop congestion simply moving to the nearest free tunnel, he added: “I understand that argument, but by extension, what it’s going to do is divert more congestion towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel, which is already even worse at times…
“The petition is against all the charges. We want to look and see if we can find an alternative way of funding it [the Silvertown Tunnel] through the [mayoral] budget process, which will take place early in the new year.”
Mr Wilson argues that the tunnel’s cost should be covered by taxpayers across London, while Mr Khan has said it should be paid for only by those who drive through it.
“London’s roads should be accessible to everybody,” the Reform member said, “and that kind of significant infrastructure I think should be paid for from general taxation, general funding - whether it’s from central government, local government, London government.”
Pressed on the fact that Silvertown’s construction price-tag is £2bn, and asked how exactly he would look to raise that sum, Mr Wilson said: “There’s plenty of ways at all levels of government. I want to look very closely at the budgeting.
“Whether or not I’ll be able to get any other [assembly] members to support me in tabling a budget amendment next year, who knows - but that’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to find an alternative way of funding this.”
From the Assembly, the petition will be passed on to Mr Khan’s office for a formal response.
Speaking to the Standard on Thursday afternoon however, Mr Khan said: “When I became the mayor in 2016, I looked at Boris Johnson’s plans [for the tunnel] that he introduced in 2012, and I was also raising eyebrows about the prospect of people in that part of London having to pay a user charge.
“But then I saw what the problem was, and it’s been a problem for ages, [which is] a tunnel built in the Victorian times, that closes on average 700 times a year. Every five minute closure leads to a three-mile tailback, which leads to congestion and all sorts of problems, so people don’t use the tunnel. The 108 bus is an unreliable bus because of that tunnel.
“What Boris Johnson’s plans were, was to build a tunnel nearby - the Silvertown Tunnel - but the only way to pay for that tunnel is for future users to pay for the cost of building [it]...
“What we don’t want is displacement to the Blackwall Tunnel, because of a user-charge tunnel next door. So the plan, which I support, is one where both of those tunnels have a charge to use them.
“We’ve worked closely with the local communities, so there are massive concessions, which have been changed in light of the consultation [conducted by TfL], and once the tunnel opens, I’m hoping that those people who are concerned will have their concerns ameliorated by the concessions.”
TfL announced last week that a 50 per cent discount will be available for low-income drivers in 12 east and south-east London boroughs (Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Hackney, Havering, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest) and the City of London, as well as a £1 discount on the standard off-peak charge for at least one year for small businesses, sole traders and charities registered in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Greenwich.
In addition, to “help encourage people to cross the Thames by public transport”, bus journeys made on three cross-river routes which serve Newham, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich, as well as cross-river journeys on the DLR from Cutty Sark to Island Gardens, and from Woolwich Arsenal to King George V will also be free for at least one year.
