Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the annual maintenance cost was of the Severn Bridges in the last year for which statistics are available; and how many vehicles crossed the Bridges in that year.
Maintenance and operation costs in 2014 were £13.16m. No separate figure for maintenance is available. In the same year, there were 13,143,901 toll paying vehicles travelling westbound over the Severn Bridges. No figure is available for vehicles travelling eastbound. It is important to note with regard to the level of tolls that they are set not just to cover maintenance and operation costs but also to repay the construction and financing costs of the Second Severn Crossing, plus the outstanding debt on the original Crossing.