‘SIGNIFICANT’ WORK NEEDED

WORKS will have to take place before the Severn Bridge tolls are scrapped to ensure the road is ready.

The date for the tolls being scrapped has been announced as December 17.

Charges will stop on that morning once measures have been installed for traffic to flow, but no time has yet been confirmed.

The bulk of work to remove the toll plazas and make the bridges free flowing will take place in the new year and will require “significant” work.

Highways England say that on December 14, they will begin work on the Prince of Wales Bridge to create temporary lanes because the existing lanes would be too narrow for cars to drive through in their existing format.

Instead, temporary lanes will be created for drivers to use until the plazas are removed and a speed restriction will be in place.

The toll plazas on each lane will eventually be removed but doing so will take “significant work” to make a free-flowing three lane motorway.

Once the tolls have been stopped on the Prince of Wales Bridge on December 17, the M48 Severn Bridge will close for two days to allow similar new lane arrangements to be put in place.

The bridges currently carry around 25 million motorists a year.

The move will end 50 years of tolls since the first Severn Bridge opened, which was followed by the Second Severn Crossing, which was recently named the Prince of Wales Bridge, in 1996.