A LOCAL MP has asked whether motorists face another increase in Severn Bridge tolls next January if the crossings have not come back into public ownership.

Newport East Labour MP Jessica Morden has called on ministers to make clear what will happen when the current private ’concession’ ends – which is expected to happen later this year.

She raised the issue in a debate at Westminster and reckons it was the 87th time she has spoken about the bridges since she was elected in 2005.

Severn River Crossing is due to hand over the bridges to the government once a revenue target of £1.028 billion – at July 1989 prices – has been reached.

Ms Morden said: “Presumably in October a car will drive through the Severn Bridge toll plaza and the revenue target will be hit – what happens then?

“If the handover is not until January 2018 will there be an increase then, as there has been every year?”

Transport minister John Hayes (Con, South Holland and The Deepings) said the government was consulting on the future of the bridge and had “no preordained view about how this matter should unfold.”

There is still a great deal of controversy about the costs of running the bridges and whether users or the Treasury should pick up the bill and Ms Morden called for a breakdown of them.

Mr Hayes promised to provide a breakdown but said the operational, maintenance and servicing costs “are real and are borne by those who pay for the crossing through tax and tolls.”

Although the government has said tolls will be reduced to £3. Ms Morden said it would be “unfair” to continue charges at that level in the light of the Treasury taking the VAT on tolls and wiping a multi-million debt off the Humber Bridge.

She said: “Tolling at £3 to pay back the £63 million cost to the government of the latent defects on some of the bridges when the government has, in fact, recouped more than double that in an unexpected tax windfall seems especially unfair – particularly when the governmetn stepped in and wiped £150 million off the Humber Bridge debt.”

Ms Morden also said that if free flow tolling – replacing cash payments with a number plate recognition system – is introduced at a later date “all back office functions for dealing with evasion and administration should be sited locally.”