By Brian Allison, local government reporter

DUNDEE CITY Council officials have refuted the claim by the Scottish Executive that ending the Tay Road Bridge tolls would make traffic congestion and air quality in Dundee worse.

Removing the tolls would also avoid more than doubling the bridge’s £12 million debt by shifting the collection booths to the Fife end, it is said.

A comprehensive rebuttal of the Executive’s reasons for retaining the tolls has been produced by council officials and will be put to the policy and resources committee tonight.

The document is a response to the Executive’s request for any factual evidence for or against retaining the tolls as part of the latest review of tolled bridges called for by Transport Minister Tavish Scott.

Among the reasons previously given for keeping tolls were that the capital costs of the bridge have not been repaid; traffic congestion and air quality problems in the centre of Dundee would be worse without tolls; tolling facilities need to be upgraded to help ease air quality problems; and the bridge must play a key part in the regeneration of the central waterfront.

The council response, drawn up by planning and transport director Mike Galloway and head of transport Iain Sherriff, points out that the Tay and Erskine bridges are exactly the same in that their original construction costs have been repaid but they both have an ongoing maintenance cost burden.

“The principles governing the decision to abolish tolls from the Erskine Bridge also apply to the Tay Road Bridge and it would, therefore, be consistent to abolish the tolls from the Tay Road Bridge,” the officers said.

Commenting on the minister’s claim that congestion and air quality would be worse without tolls, the officers said, “This statement is incorrect and, in fact, the opposite is true.

“Traffic modelling undertaken in Dundee…shows that the bridge tolls cause queues to develop, causing congestion throughout Dundee city centre and beyond, especially during the weekday evening peak.

“It can therefore be concluded that without tolls, congestion and air quality problems in Dundee would be better.”

On the subject of upgrading toll collection facilities the officers said the minimum requirement to replace the toll system on a like-for-like basis was £1.8 million but this would not alleviate the queuing that causes city centre congestion.

They said the minimum requirement to reduce queuing at the tolls would be to introduce electronic tolling and add an extra lane at the toll plaza at a cost of £6.7 million, while moving the toll plaza to Fife is estimated at £13.3 million.

“Dundee’s air quality problems could be equally eased by removing the need to collect tolls as, although the current toll booths do not have the capacity to cope with evening peak traffic of over 1600 vehicles per hour, the actual bridge capacity with no tolls is 3600 vehicles per hour,” the officers said.

“It seems obtuse to add to the £12.3 million debt by spending £13.3 million to upgrade tolling facilities to reduce Dundee’s air quality problems when removing the tolls would achieve the same benefits.”

They said the traffic modelling showed that for the central waterfront development road network to operate there must be no queues related to the tolls.

“This can be achieved by spending a minimum of £6.7 million on a new toll plaza or the ‘preferred’ option of £13.3 million to move the tolls to the south end of the bridge or by removing the need to collect tolls,” they said.

“It can be concluded that removing queues at the Tay Road Bridge tolls is required for the central waterfront development regeneration and removing the tolls would achieve this.”

SNP group transport spokesman Nigel Don said, “It is absurd that we should be asked to approve expenditure in excess of £13 million to move the toll booths to the Fife side when all environmental and economic objectives can be achieved simply by abolishing the charges.”