Toll charges to pay for a second Tyne Tunnel could be sent spiraling even higher than the £2.15 predicted, it was warned last night. Unions and transport campaigners claimed the involvement of a private firm in the deal to build the new crossing would push prices up. The Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority, which will oversee the project, said the charge to motorists could increase by as much as 115% by the time the tunnel opens in 2009. But the scheme will be run as a public-private partnership, meaning the company that wins the right to run the tunnel will be seeking to make a profit from the 30-year deal. And that could put the toll up even further, according to former South Tyneside councillor Stan Smith of Cleaside Avenue, South Shields, who said: "The deal will hand the whole tunnel to a private firm interested in making money, and the motorist will become the milch cow. The tunnel should have been paid for from grants from the Government and the EU." Unison regional secretary Gill Hale said: "Private companies don't do these things for nothing. By one means or another, whether by trimming the workforce or charging more, they will seek to make a profit." Project manager, Paul Fenwick, said: "We will receive tenders and set the toll on the basis of what we see. Thereafter, the tolls will increase in line with inflation. "There could then be an application to the PTA to increase the toll, but it would have to be something transparent and recognisable, such as a change in safety standards that required a complete refit of the tunnel. "But the procedure could result in a local inquiry." Soaring costs Former councillor Stan Smith told the Department for Transport how costs spiralled on the first Tyne Tunnel. The tunnel was built after Northumberland and Durham County Councils borrowed public money for the project, completed in 1967. But the councils, and later the Tyne and Wear PTA, delayed payments, allowing interest to stack up to more than double the initial debt, Mr Smith claimed. He made his case at a time when tolls for the tunnel were increasing, partly to pay for the second crossing. Mr Smith told the DfT in 2002: "The tolls are used to pay off the debt for the existing tunnels which, with a bit of prudence, could have been paid off long ago, pay for the running costs for the existing tunnel, pay for the pedestrian and cyclist tunnels and pay into a fund to help build a new tunnel. In modern parlance, a triple whammy. It may well be the final cost of the new tunnel will be very much greater than present estimates." | 
