The Silvertown Road Tunnel is set to open in 2025, at which point, under the contract signed off by the Mayor of London in late 2019, a toll will be imposed on both the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels. Today, the Mayor has written to Secretary of State Mark Harper suggesting that given the toll is set to be £5.25, a greater discount for low-income Londoners should be considered. [1]
Reacting to the Mayor’s letter, Green Party London Assembly Member Siân Berry issued the following statement:
“The Silvertown Road Tunnel should never have been started. Now, the Mayor is tying himself up in knots trying to reconcile the new costs the tunnels will impose on drivers in the area with the need to limit pollution from those motor vehicles.
“It is not too late to transform this infrastructure into a tunnel for public transport, walking, and cycling, a solution which would carry none of the traffic and pollution risks and at the same time provide an affordable option to cross the river for older people, younger people, and the nearly 50 per cent of residents in Greenwich and Newnham without access to a car.” [2]
Notes to editors
[1] '£10 for return trip through Blackwall tunnel' warning as Sadiq Khan seeks Government help for lower tolls for low-income drivers https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/blackwall-silvertown-tolls-tunnels-sadiq-khan-discount-b1114249.html
[2] Understanding car ownership in London, https://centreforlondon.org/blog/car-ownership-census/
[3] Siân Berry AM has been an outspoken opponent of the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels since the inception of the projects.
In June 2022, Siân Berry AM successfully led the London Assembly in agreeing to a motion calling on the Mayor to model the health, congestion and climate consequences of there being no road user charging at the Blackwall and Silvertown Road Tunnels. In response at the time, the Mayor refused to do the modelling saying it was an "implausible scenario.”
Later that year, Siân Berry AM published Better ways to use the Silvertown Road Tunnel, a report summarizing the many alternative uses for the tunnel. Derived from public consultation, including local children, the report laid out how the infrastructure could be repurposed for everything from a two-way tram to a hospital for nocturnal animals.
Just this month, Siân Berry AM asked the Mayor numerous questions on the feasibility of tolls on the Tunnels, including specifically how the toll levels will be guarded against inflation. In response, yesterday the Mayor noted that “[t]he exact charge levels for various types of vehicles will be set by the Transport for London (TfL) Board closer to the Silvertown Tunnel opening in 2025,” seemingly a direct contradiction to his letter to Government today.