Weston Toll to be Reinstated?

By vickifitz | Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 08:01

DRIVERS could soon have to pay a fee once again to use the notorious Kewstoke to Weston-super-Mare Toll Road.

The toll ceased operating in 2005 following three years of considerable losses by the concessionaire and North Somerset Council’s executive decided not to reinstate it.

However, Kewstoke Parish Council has now decided to look at setting up a business to collect charges again.

A working group was set up after residents spoke out about speeding through the village and how reinstating a toll could combat this problem.

Members had looked at options including charging as a parish council, becoming a charitable trust or setting up a business.

But after discussions with interested parties including North Somerset Council, which owns the Toll Road, setting up a business appears to be the best way forward.

Discussions are now due to continue between council officers and parish councillors, before the full details are presented to the public.

The road is notorious for accidents and has seen 26 accidents in the past 10 years, with a total of 46 casualties, including four deaths and seven serious injuries.

Ann Pearson from Kewstoke escaped with back and chest injuries when her Mazda MX5 convertible plunged over the cliff in 2003.

Best friends Tom Broomhall and Julian Bowen, both 19, were not so fortunate and died on April 30, 2004 when they crashed a short distance away.

Since this double fatality there have been four recorded injury accidents on the road, resulting in five casualties, all slight.

The council invested £85,000 in 2005/06 on five safety barriers, solar powered warning signs and rumblewave surfacing to alert drivers to hazards.

However, the two signs located at the Weston end of the toll road facing cars travelling in both directions no longer work.

They are meant to flash red with the message “slow down” and should also show there is a bend in the road approaching but both are unlit.

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Comments

it is a great idea provided that the money collected is used to improve the road and put barriers along the whole length of the road as there are areas where there are no barriers at all which could be desasterous if a car goes off the road in these barrier gaps

By gingercat1 at 17:06 on 24/10/09
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I do not truly understand why toll charges need to be made. We pay our road tax, we pay our Council Tax - therefore we pay to drive on the road. It is not a privately owned road - where is the justification for charging? If it comes back in, then I just won't use the road and go the othr way, which is just as quick and I know an awful lot of local people who feel the same.

By Vanguard Surveillance & Security at 17:28 on 19/10/09
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How much safer can you get? You have to either have something wrong with your car or be speeding to even come close to going over the edge. The speed limit is there for a reason. Yet the many times I've used that road I have never seen ANYONE follow it.

It's as dangerous as any road. Yet you have people who do not adjust the way they drive to the conditions and then you get accidents.

By TankHavoc at 08:32 on 12/10/09
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If toll charges were introduced and the fee was nominal, the money then put to use with keeping the road safer, then probably a good idea, after all lives safed is a good thing, but if the toll was introduced but money used for other things, then that would be senseless as the road sounds as though it needs some kind of safety barriers.

By Patti2009 at 12:35 on 10/10/09
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Yes that is correct.

By vickifitz at 11:24 on 16/09/09
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