Motorists face higher taxes on car use as a result of government plans to introduce more toll roads in the UK.
Chancellor George Osborne revealed the government is considering introducing tolls to help encourage private sector investment in a programme of road building across the country over the next decade.
The potential to raise revenue through tolls is expected to make the returns on such projects more attractive for would-be backers.
In his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Osborne said the government would put £5 billion into a new National Infrastructure Plan.
Private firms are expected to contribute a further £20 billion.
East Anglia targeted
One of the priorities for the scheme is to boost capacity on the A14 in East Anglia, which links the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk with the M11 and A1 motorways in Cambridgeshire, as well as the M1 and M6 further west.
It is possible that, as with the M6 toll road, a secondary toll-charging road could be built alongside parts of the A14 to ease congestion, rather than simply making improvements on the existing carriageway and imposing tolls on all motorists.
Fair on motorists?
But critics argue that, even though Osborne agreed in his Autumn Statement to scrap the planned January 3p rise in fuel duty, tolls would add an unfair burden to already beleaguered motorists.
Matthew Elliott of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, writing in the Daily Mail newspaper, said: “What about the taxes already paid by motorists?
"Drivers already pay £10 billion for road maintenance and give the Exchequer another £21.5 billion after that.
“Why should they pay even more money to drive their car? Motorists will be clobbered once again for going about their daily business and leading an honest life.”
Do tolls work?
It has also been pointed out that the M6 toll section, one of Britain’s first fee-charging roads, is currently operating at just half its capacity, with its free counterpart heavily congested.
A recent report for transport bosses in the West Midlands blamed the high tolls for acting as too much of a deterrent.
