Your Voice, Your Vote: Abolish Tamar Bridge toll

A woman from Plymouth has called for the Tamar Bridge toll to be abolished.

Linda Eastlake argued the government should be responsible for the charge because the bridge is part of the A38.

Ms Eastlake was among the many people who got in touch with the BBC via Your Voice, Your Vote to identify the Tamar Bridge toll as the most important issue for them in the general election.

She said: "Surely it is a part of the A38 so therefore National Highways should cover the cost, not the residents of Cornwall."

Candidates standing in the constituency of South East Cornwall were asked to respond to Ms Eastlake's suggestion in a BBC hustings on Thursday.

Conservative Sheryll Murray said the first thing she would do is stop the current increase to tolls.

Earlier this year, Plymouth City Council and Cornwall Council approved plans to increase the toll from £2.60 to £3 and £1.30 to £1.50.

Ms Murray said 6,300 residents had signed her petition to state that they did not want the toll hike.

"If I am elected on 4 July, I already have sitting on my desk in Westminster the layout of a private members bill to actually try to change the Tamar Bridge Act to abolish both the tolls on the bridge and ferry," she said.

Labour candidate Anna Gelderd said her party encouraged "lower tolls for local people" and she wanted to see improved technology on the bridge.

Ms Gelderd said she would campaign to make both crossings free in the "long term".

"I am not prepared to support cuts to ferries that will put more traffic and more pollution across the bridge," she said.

"It has to be paid for somehow."

Liberal Democrat candidate Colin Martin called the toll a "heavy burden on a small community" and suggested the toll be paid by the government.

He said: "For the national budget it would be a 1,000th of 1%, so this argument that it has to be a long-term aspiration, that is nonsense."

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Reform UK's Cornwall organiser Rob Parsonage, who stood in the party's South East Cornwall candidate Paul Wadley, said: "It is fine for the parties to turn around and say let us get it funded by central government, but that means you are pushing the cost on the people anyway."

Mr Parsonage suggested an alternative solution would be to install automated number plate recognition cameras, which he said would save £750,000 annually, helping to clear Tamar Crossings' debt.

Green Party candidate Martin Corney and Heritage Party candidate Graham Cowdry were invited to the hustings but did not attend.

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