Council declines to refund bridge tolls despite tribunal defeat

Halton Borough Council has warned it will not refund any tolls paid by users of the Mersey Gateway Bridge after losing a tribunal case.

It said the five applicants who successfully took the council to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal had not yet paid any penalty, but users who had could not expect an automatic refund of the £2 charge.

The five drivers had taken the council to the tribunal and Halton then appealed.

In his ruling, tribunal adjudicator Edward Solomons confirmed the original decision that five motorists were not liable to pay the toll “because Halton Borough Council, the charging authority, had not specified the sum of the charge in the Mersey Gateway Road Charging Order 2017”.

This “amounts to a procedural error on the part of the council”, he added, making the charge unenforceable under the Transport Act 2000.

A Halton statement said: “Adjudication by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal cannot and does not, in law, invalidate or remove the powers in place from the 14 October 2017 to toll and enforce tolls on the Mersey Gateway Bridge.

“Adjudication is specific to the case being considered, and any decision of an adjudicator only relates to that particular case.”

It went on to say that any suggestion that Halton was acting illegally by charging the toll was “misleading, inaccurate and wrong in law” and it would not repay any payment by drivers in that period.

Mark Smulian