Proposals to introduce tolls on the main route from Felixstowe to the Midlands have sounded alarm bells at the Freight Transport Association.
The Highways Agency announced plans to upgrade a section of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntington but warned that part of the £1.5 billion cost would need to be met by road users – probably through tolls.
The FTA said members had a realistic view on the lack of forward funding for road infrastructure and could see that there would be a tendency to move to tolling as an option to attract the necessary finance.
But, said Malcolm Bingham, FTA’s head of road network management policy: “Tolling is always bad news for the logistics industry as it is always taken as a threat of extra cost.”
The association is calling for the industry to be closely involved in discussions about how the scheme will be funded.
“FTA members realise that without tolling, it will be difficult to raise the necessary funding for new infrastructure, but our members want to ensure that any tolling that is put in place is reasonable and fit with a set of parameters which the Association has called the tolling charter.”
