Villagers forced to pay council to cross historic bridge

A row has broken out over an historic toll bridge less than 100 metres long over plans to stop villagers from being able to cross it for free.

Locals criticised the proposals to hike up the £1 crossing at Eling Toll Bridge to £2 and scrapping free passes for people that are exempt.

The bridge, in the waterside Hampshire village of Eling on the edge of the New Forest, links one end of the village to the other.

It is thought to date back to before 1700 but experts believe a causeway would have existed there around 2,000 years ago in Roman times.

Sitting on the north side of the bridge is a 900-year-old historic tide mill, one of only two operational tide mills in the country.

An overhaul of the existing pricing has been put forward by the Lib Dem Totton and Eling town council, which is hoping to reduce the amount of traffic using the bridge and raise money for repairs.

Currently, those exempt include locals living on Eling Hill road, NHS staff on duty, council workers, Blue Badge holders, ParcelForce and Royal Mail vehicles, visitors to the cemetery and those attending services at St Mary’s Church.

Totton and Eling town council say the changes will help pay for repairs for the bridge as it has defects which require thousands of pounds to fix.

A decision is set to be made by New Forest district council – who owns the bridge – on Wednesday.

Peter Ramm, 59, the miller at Eling Tide Mill, said: “That whole area has been sadly neglected for a while now.

“There are problems on the bridge and there’s a lot of maintenance that’s been put back and put back. The increase is going to put more people off, that’s what it’ll do.

“I don’t think it’s a good decision, to be honest, there’s a whole raft of things that need to be addressed.”

He said the site is of historical significance. “The causeway has been repaired many times over the years... A causeway would have existed a couple of thousand years ago, all the evidence indicates that.

“Needless to say it’s a very historic bridge.

“If there’s a Roman mill underneath the mill – and we think there is – then the area is even more important than we think, but the council don’t really understand that,” he said.

Martin Russell, 57, an electrician who lives by the bridge and runs his business out of the Eling said he and his personal assistant wife Joanne have been using it for years and have benefited from free passage as members of the community.

“I’m pretty angry about it all”, Mr Russell said. “We have lived here in this bungalow for 25 years and my grandad lived here in the 1920s.

“As locals we have never really paid. I live and run my business out of Eling, people on the bridge usually just say ‘oh don’t worry about it, go through’. But lately … have made me pay. We would use that bridge daily, my wife and I... I’m not going to pay £2.

He added: “It’s going to put 10 minutes onto my journey. It’s a bad decision by the council because everyone has lived here for years and uses it. I wrote the council a snotty letter.”

Merrilyn Dracass, 80, who has lived in Eling Hill since 1979, said: “The bridge has been there for hundreds of years, and it’s not fit for heavy traffic.

“The proposal by the town council to solve this is to double the toll.

“We only live 50 to 100 yards from the bridge, our neighbours even closer, so to suggest we should go the long way round to get to Totton if we don’t pay the toll is ridiculous.

“It can be incredibly congested, and one doesn’t want to be sitting in a line of traffic puffing out diesel fumes. It’s not eco-friendly.

“The sensible thing for residents is to go across the toll bridge. We have had our free passes to cross the bridge for 40 years. I cannot see any good reason why they should be withdrawn.”

Abdulmuneer Kunnilabbas, 52, a catering company owner, said: “It’s not going to work. I will never pay that £2, it’s too much. It’s a really bad decision.”

Richard Young, the Conservative councillor for Marchwood and Eling, said: “The wider community costs from removing residents’ exemptions would include generating additional vehicle emissions, worsening air quality, and creating a barrier to residents freely accessing their education, healthcare, and retail facilities.

“To date there has been no modelling, no business plan, and no equality impact analysis published which might help our community to better understand the necessity of what the Town Council proposes.”

However, David Harrison, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Totton South, said the changes are necessary.

He said: “The structure of the bridge needs to be maintained and to do that, you must have a model that makes sense financially.

“The increase from £1 to £2 is justified and there has not been a price increase in 20 years.

“While residents won’t be happy about the increase, they will be happy with the reduced amount of traffic.

“Those living in Eling village and Bury Brickfields can buy an annual pass costing £25 to cover the administration charges.”