"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap all existing and planned tolls, "road pricing" and so called "congestion charging".

    Details of Petition:

    "Tolls, whatever they are called, are a most inefficient tax that is very expensive to collect and enforce. Tolls dont encourage fuel economy, and lead to more wasted time, fuel and increased emissions as drivers queue to pay or detour on to less suitable roads All road users are very heavily taxed, and tolls are an added unjust burden that particularly hits drivers on low incomes. Congestion is caused by almost none of the existing tax going back into better roads such as - bypasses round towns and villages, multi level junctions, tunnels in urban areas, and extra lanes on motorways."

The Government recognises that paying for road use, whether through tolls or other charges, is a matter of considerable public interest, and welcomes debate on this subject.

The petition mentions tolls together with congestion charging and road pricing. But there is a difference. Tolls are about paying for infrastructure, whereas road pricing, which might take the form of a congestion charge, is about tackling congestion, where too many vehicles want to use the same road space at the same time.

There are a number of tolled bridges and tunnels around the country, and one tolled motorway.

There are eight small privately owned or operated bridges on the public highway built and tolled under Private Acts of Parliament (some going back to the 18th Century). They may only charge tolls that meet the costs of maintenance and operating and, in some cases, a reasonable return upon investment.

Then there are five estuary crossings that are owned and operated by, or on behalf of, local authorities: the Humber Bridge, the Mersey Tunnels, the Tyne Tunnel, the Tamar Bridge and the Itchen Bridge. Again they may only charge tolls that meet the costs of building and operating the undertaking, although at two of the undertakings - the Mersey and Tyne Tunnels - legislation has recently been enabled allowing for some toll revenue to be used for other transport projects.

Finally there are two crossings that are part of the strategic road network: Severn and Dartford.

The second Severn Crossing was financed and built by the private sector under a concession agreement covering both bridges; the consortium that built it needs the toll revenue to repay its investment. A similar arrangement applied for Dartford until the crossing reverted to public ownership in 2003, and we have applied a charge there since that time to help manage growing demand that exceeds the capacity of the Crossing.

In the case of the major tolled crossings it is probably fair to say that they would not have been built so soon, and maybe not at all, if there had not been a specific revenue stream to pay for them. The major estuarial crossings have collectively brought huge benefits to businesses, and those benefits have been realised sooner because of the arrangements for financing what are very expensive pieces of infrastructure. The same can be said of the M6 Toll.

As for road pricing / congestion charging, the previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair, responded in some detail to a petition on this subject last February. You can read the response at http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page11050.asp