Your voice, your vote: Tamar Bridge should be removed

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

Linda Eastlake argued the government should be responsible for the toll as the bridge is part of the A38.

She said: “It is certainly part of the A38 so therefore National Highways should cover the cost, not the people of Cornwall.”

Candidates in the South East Cornwall constituency were asked to respond to Ms Eastlake’s suggestion in a BBC audience on Thursday.

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

Ms Murray said 6,300 residents had signed her petition to say they did not want the tax increase.

“If elected on July 4, I already have a private members’ bill on my desk in Westminster to actually try to change the Tamar Bridge Act to remove both bridge and ferry charges,” she said.

Labor candidate Anna Gelderd said her party encouraged “lower tolls for local people” and wanted to see improved technology on the bridge.

Ms Gelderd said she would campaign for both crossings to be free for the “long term”.

“I am not prepared to support cutting the ferry which will bring more traffic and more pollution across the bridge,” she said.

“It has to be paid for somehow.”

Liberal Democrat candidate Colin Martin called the tax a “heavy burden on a small community” and suggested the tax should be paid by the government.

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