The huge amount made in Mersey Gateway fines in just three months

Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request reveal that a huge multi-million pound Mersey Gateway income was generated through issuing fines during the bridge's first three months.

Between October 2017 and January 31, 2018, the operators of the Mersey Gateway bridge made £2.775 million in Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) from motorists who failed to pay the £2 toll fee.

Our sister site The ECHO reports that the same FOI request shows that in total, the bridge pulled in a huge £15m overall in that same time frame.

It means that the money made from fines represents 18.5% of the total profit made from the bridge in those three months.

The FOI said that between October and January, Mersey Gateway have made £15 million, £2.775 (18.5%) of which is generated through PCNs.

Tweeting the findings, campaign group Scrap Mersey Tolls described the figure as shocking' and speculated that after another three months of fines, the figure would now be much higher.

Previous FOI figures have also revealed Mersey Gateway are issuing PCNS at the rate of 800,000 a year.

A spokesperson from the campaign group said: “Local politicians should be ashamed that they have inflicted such a widespread burden of financial misery.”

This comes after traffic expert Dr Adam Snow, revealed that an error in the wording of the PCNs could effect Halton council’s powers to legally enforce them.

At a crucial Mersey Gateway hearing last Tuesday , it was revealed that the wording of some PCNs had been copied and pasted from the Dartford Crossing and said the fines were enforceable by the Secretary of State.

Dartford crossing fines are payable to the Government, but Mersey Gateway fines are paid to Merseyflow and it is Halton Council, not the Secretary of State, who authorise this.

Dr Snow, a senior law lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University with a PHD in road fines, said this error was known as a ‘procedural impropriety’ and in his view would be grounds for contesting any PCN that said it was issued on the authority of the Secretary of State.

However he added that anyone who had already paid the PCN despite this error might not be so lucky as to get a refund because to an extent, they “accepted their fate and paid already.”

Tuesday’s hearing saw a lawyer from Halton Council contest a landmark Traffic Penalty Tribunal ruling that said the controversial tolls did not comply with the Transport Act 2000, because Halton council had not specified the exact price of the tolls clearly in their Road User Charging Order Scheme (RUSCO), which enforces the tolls.

That TPT ruling, made in April, put 456 appeals against PCNs on hold.

An independent adjudicator is expected to make a decision of the legality of the tolls and consequent PCNs in the next week.

Halton Borough Council confirmed that the figures in the FOI result were correct.