No escape for drivers: Dartford Crossing toll rises by 40% as the government classifies it as a traffic measure
The latest financial burden on the nation’s drivers is set to take effect tomorrow (1 September) as the Government increases the Dart Charge in Kent by an astonishing 40 per cent.
This initiative - announced in June - has been criticized as a blatant ’revenue generator’ targeting ’easy target’ motorists who have already been exploited like a cash cow for over two decades.
The last increase in the Dart Charge was in 2014. However, ministers argue it needs to rise again to motivate drivers to choose alternative routes, thereby reducing congestion levels.
In announcing the increase, Lilian Greenwood, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Transport, asserted that raising one-time payments from £2.50 to £3.50 for cars, motorhomes, and small minibuses is a decision purely intended to ’manage traffic’.
All other road users will also experience a 40 per cent increase, with coaches and vans charged £4.20 - up from £3 - and lorries facing an increase from £6 to £8.40. Motorcycles, mopeds, and quad bikes will still be able to use the route free of charge.
The crossing, consisting of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge going southbound and the two Dartford Tunnels heading north, connects Thurrock in Essex with Dartford in Kent and averages more than 150,000 vehicles per day.
AA President Edmund King states that toll payments for the crossing to cover the 1991 construction of the bridge should have settled it by 2003, but the Dart Charge has been maintained as a ’nice little earner that raises tens of millions of pounds every year’.
How much will the Dartford Crossing cost from 1 September 2025?
Drivers have been required to pay to use the Dartford Crossing since the first tunnel opened in 1963.
At that time, the charge was two shillings and sixpence to cover the cost of its construction under the Thames.
Motorists continued to pay at tollbooths until the introduction of the online Dart Charge system in late 2014, which was designed to ’make journeys smoother’. A price hike was implemented at that time to ’help manage increased demand’.
However, ministers claim that in the 11 years since the previous price increase, usage of the crossing has grown by 7.5 per cent.
With up to 180,000 vehicles using the crossing on the busiest days, Ms. Greenwood attempted to justify the hike, saying traffic levels during peak times are ’well in excess of the crossing’s design capacity’.
She suggested this has ’caused delays for drivers using the crossing, congestion and journey disruption to drivers on the M25 and has had a range of knock-on impacts for local communities’.
Local residents who currently pay £20 a year to use the Dartford Crossing as many times as they want will now have to pay £25.
Journeys made between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am will continue to be free.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said Greenwood’s claim that a 40 per cent increase in the charge is solely to manage traffic flow has ’raised more than a few eyebrows, given that those making the crossing have little alternative but to do so’.
He added: ’Most people will, understandably, and probably rightly, see this move as nothing else but a revenue generator.’
The AA’s Edmund King commented: ’Long-distance travellers from the UK and Europe, freight, business, and regional users have all been let down by successive governments through the unnecessary perpetuation of tolls and lack of future capacity at Dartford.
’Tolling was supposed to pay for the Dartford Bridge and then end, which should have happened in 2003.
’However, it became a nice little earner that raises tens of millions of pounds every year.
’Increasing the tolls by an extra pound, when the majority of users have no alternative about the time and place they cross the Thames, is simply road charging and a bridge too far.’
James Barwise, policy lead at the Road Haulage Association (RHA), said: ’Dartford remains the only practical Thames crossing for HGVs and coaches in the South East.
’It’s therefore regrettable that the charge increase has been so significant.
’This adds to running costs at an already financially challenging time for many businesses in our sector (HGVs, coaches, and vans) and ultimately pushes up prices for consumers.’
A brief history of Dartford Crossing
The trunk road crossing was opened in three stages.
The first west tunnel was completed in 1963 and - to accommodate increasing traffic volumes - the east tunnel was built in 1980.
The two tunnels are 1,430 meters long.
The Queen Elizabeth Bridge was opened to traffic on 30 October 1991 at a cost of £120 million, which included £30 million to lay the approach roads.
In 1999, the Government announced that tolling would end in 2003 - the date it estimated the bridge would be paid off.
But it reversed this decision just two years later, citing that making the crossing free of charge would create more traffic.
