Petition Clifton Suspension Bridge Toll Charge Increase

The residents in the immediate vicinity of this historic landmark request the Government to prevent the operators, namely the Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust (CSBT) from increasing the toll fee by more than the rate of inflation year on year for those users who pay by pre-payment card. We require the Department of Transport to obtain written confirmation from the CSBT that future annual increases be restricted to less than the prevailing rate of inflation as they have stated. The CSBT must also be held to account in strategically planning its future fund-raising, seeking alternative revenue streams to prioritise its expenditure so that the promotion of for example tourism should not be funded from toll revenue which should be deployed for essential engineering works. The current model of hyper-inflationary toll increase (500% over the past decade) cannot sustain every desirable but non-essential expansion plan, and will only culminate in a downward spiral as user-numbers decrease.