News

Victory for Bridge Campaign 28 January 2010

Jessica Morden, Labour MP for Newport East, today warmly welcomed the announcement by the Department of Transport that Severn Bridge users would be able to pay the tolls by credit and debit cards from April.   At Transport questions, the Minister praised Jessica for her long-standing campaign on behalf of local bridge users, which he credited as bringing about this change. The Minister said “as a direct consequence of her campaign, lobbying and giving me a hard time outside the chamber as well as in it, work is under way to make the necessary amendments to the secondary legislation to allow card payments to be allowed on the Severn crossings." Jessica said "This is good news for bridge users and first time visitors to Wales who find it incomprehensible that you can pay the toll in euros but not by card. I'd like to thank all the constituents who have raised this with me; I've lobbied hard on their behalf.”  However, Jessica continued saying “There are still issues to resolve around the annual toll increases and I will keep raising this with the Department of Transport.  But I am also pleased the Department is resolving issues to do with commuters using car sharing schemes swapping tags - something that was raised with me by a constituent in Caldicot and the Department has committed to sorting out.”