UK INDEPENDENCE Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage visited the Second Severn Crossing yesterday (1st September) as part of the party’s campaign to scrap the tolls.

Farage joined a group of UKIP Wales supporters on the M4 bridge, and claimed the party was poised to become “a strong and vocal opposition to Labour inside the Welsh Assembly” following the 2016 Assembly election.

A spokesperson for UKIP said: “UKIP strongly believes that the punitive tolls on the two Severn Bridges simply must be scrapped.

“Since its construction in 1996, tolls on the Severn Crossings have gone from £3.80 for car drivers entering Wales, to an enormous £6.50, penalizing those coming into the country on one of the most direct routes from England. For heavy goods vehicles, that charge is now almost a whopping £20. This cannot be good for the Welsh economy.

“These tolls are also echoed on the original Severn Bridge which was handed to the consortium backing the construction of the second Severn crossing back in 1996. Both routes have been subject to ever increasing charges for almost twenty years, and now represent the highest tolls in the UK.

“These tolls however, could come to an end in 2018 when ownership of the two bridges goes into public hands. Currently road users are paying off a debt to a range of financial backers for the construction of the second Severn crossing, with a vast proportion of that money going to a company in France.

“But in two years’ time that debt will have been repaid and we have the opportunity to scrap the tolls once and for all, making it free to enter Wales by the most directly accessible and most used route.

“Yet most of the other parties unbelievably argue that the tolls must be maintained.

“By pledging to scrap the extortionate Severn bridge tolls after 2018,  we are sending a warning shot to the other parties that UKIP is coming to the Assembly and we are not afraid to hold them to account by standing up for the people of Wales.”