Daily Telegraph 13th April 2023 – Hammersmith Bridge Repairs
However absurd a decade long repair schedule seems, particularly when compared to the sub 3 year timescale to substantially upgrade and widen the Tamar Bridge (at local cost) between 1999 and 2001, it is already too much that the taxes of people remote from London are used to subsidise TfL every year.
To now propose that the Government and TfL (the latter already being a recipient of substantial tax payer funding) will use funds that they receive from nationwide taxpayers to effect this repair (or part thereof) whilst other communities from outside London (The Dart Crossing, Humber Bridge, Tamar Bridge, Itchen Bridge, Tyne tunnel and Mersey Bridges) still pay tolls to use vital transport link crossings local to them is completely unacceptable.
Either all of these bridges are part of the strategic road network and should be funded centrally by Government, or none of them are and the Local Authority for Hammersmith (and by association the local population) should fund their bridge repair themselves.
Hammersmith Bridge’s £200 million repairs will take at least a decade
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