{"id":28677,"date":"2026-05-05T05:28:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28677\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:28:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:28:28","slug":"anger-and-envelopes-full-of-fines-at-warburton-toll-bridge-where-prices-have-soared-by-over-700","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28677\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger and ‘envelopes full of fines’ at Warburton Toll Bridge where prices have soared by over 700%"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents and drivers say they have been issued with huge fines since the bridge toll increased from 12p to \u00a31 per crossing<\/p>\n

18:42, 04 May 2026Updated 22:42, 04 May 2026<\/p>\n

Locals protest at Warburton Toll Bridge after fines issued months after crossings<\/p>\n

Standing across from a sign informing motorists this journey is going to cost them, residents gathered to make their feelings known this afternoon (May 4). Passing cars beeped in support, drivers slowed down to speak to organisers and locals spoke with passion.<\/p>\n

Today’s protest follows an influx on the border of Greater Manchester. Drivers, many of those who live nearby, say they have been issued with fines up to five months after using Warburton Toll Bridge, which crosses Manchester Ship Canal as it makes its way through Trafford<\/a> towards Cheshire.<\/p>\n

Here, tolls used to be collected in person before an online payment system was introduced in December last year. It was a change which saw the fee rise from 12p to \u00a31 – an increase of more than 700%.<\/p>\n

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras are now used to monitor the crossing. Under the conditions of crossing, motorists must pay the \u00a31 toll online by midnight the day after they use the bridge.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter<\/p>\n

Regular users can set up a pre-paid account for the tolls to be taken automatically, with discounts for local residents or Blue Badge holders. Those who fail to pay are sent an Unpaid Toll Charge letter, and can face fines of up to \u00a3100.<\/p>\n

Sections of the road across the bridge have also been made subject to double red lines, also known as ‘red routes’, prohibiting stopping, loading or parking.<\/p>\n

On Bank Holiday Monday, residents gathered on Warburton Bridge Road to protest the payment system they say has been causing disruption to many.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Tom Shanks, who lives in Hollins Green with partner Julie, said: “It’s the amount that Peel Holdings is charging to go over this small bridge which they’ve hardly done anything to. They purchased the canal, with the bridges and the roads, and they were supposed to upkeep them over the years but they hardly touched this road and it had potholes.<\/p>\n

“Now they’ve come along and resurfaced it, and it is a lot better, but they should have been doing this for the last ten or twenty years. Now they’ve put the charge up and they’re charging people for going over this small bridge to refund the money that cost them the job they should have been doing over the last twenty years.”<\/p>\n

He said the couple have fallen out of the catchment area for the discount, despite living next door to a neighbour who is within the catchment. Of the recent notices of fines affecting drivers, he said: “My nephew got a notice from just a week ago, from Christmas<\/a>. It’s happening to a lot of people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

“Stop the charge. They should have been paying for the upkeep of this road for the last couple of decades and they’ve not. It’s the same with all these rich people who buy these things but they don’t want to keep them up and then they want to charge the local people and working people to make the money back.<\/p>\n

“It’s all wrong.”<\/p>\n

Brenda Williams, who runs the Warburton Toll Bridge Action Group on Facebook, said: “I think it’s just ridiculous… I had to go to a presentation and I said to them ‘I’ve got an old lady who lives one side of the bridge, and her mum, in her 90s, lives on the other side, and she goes three times a day to take her meals. It was costing her 25p originally… it’s ridiculous.<\/p>\n

“They then brought it down to \u00a31 and I said even that is too much for people on minimum wage, who have got to cross five times a week to work. That’s \u00a310, they could feed their children for a few days.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

“For somebody who’s on a very low wage , that is a massive amount. Now people are getting fines backdated from December and January and are arriving now in May – how can they do that?<\/p>\n

“They don’t seem to have got their act together with this system in the first place because should have opened in September, but it was not until the end of November. They couldn’t get system up and running, even now a year later, it’s still not up and running properly.”<\/p>\n

Brenda told the M.E.N. she felt the fees, and fines, were hitting the working class hardest, stating the only alternative is to go “all the way round and go over the motorway, but it’s not a possibility for everybody”.<\/p>\n

She added: “The price of fuel now, might be a couple of quid a few years ago, now its a tenner to go all that way round, especially if you do it every day of the week, and people don’t always have the time either.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Rachel Alexander said she had been hit with a number of fines: “I’m protesting because I’ve had four envelopes full of fines, I’ve been paying some of the fines, the phone says everything is fine and had been paid, but the paperwork says I’ve got to pay the fines.<\/p>\n

“I find it very distressing having to keep on getting more envelopes and opening them up. Working from Lancashire and then commuting to Altrincham<\/a> to work there, its a long way, and then paying \u00a3166 in fines. So I’ve basically paid twice, so I thought I need to protest as it’s not right.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Lymm resident and Warrington independent councillor Graham Gowland was in attendance. He said: “People were resenting the introduction of the new toll but now they are angry and frustrated at the enforcement approach Peel has taken for what was already an unpopular charge.<\/p>\n

“It’s not people choosing not to make a payment. It’s people struggling with a new system that requires that requires a little bit of understanding from the operator.”<\/p>\n

He said ‘hundreds if not thousands’ of drivers have been caught out with a \u00a360 penalty charge being payable, discounted to \u00a330 if paid within two weeks.<\/p>\n

“I’m not hearing of anybody choosing not to pay,” said Coun Gowland, who went on that many drivers using the bridge in the evenings – when there was no charge as the old toll booth wasn’t manned at nights – were simply forgetting to pay online. Drivers who used the bridge many times in a day have also been caught out, he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Local residents protest on the bridge over the fee increase(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Manchester Ship Canal Company, which is run by Peel Ports Group, said: “This is a significant modernisation of the bridge operation and an adjustment for users.<\/p>\n

“The approach we are taking on enforcement is proportionate and fair as it balances the responsibility we have to drivers who have paid the tolls, or those who have only had minor missed payments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents and drivers say they have been issued with huge fines since the bridge toll increased from 12p…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12561,1717,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-28677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-lymm","9":"tag-trafford","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116520321200394568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}