Mersey Gateway Bridge and Silver Jubilee Bridge (merseyflow)

Merseyflow sorts vehicles by weight and seats, and the classes are identical on both bridges. Cars, campervans and vans under 3.5 tonnes are Class 2. Goods vehicles of 3.5 to 12 tonnes are Class 3 and heavier ones Class 4, while buses and large minibuses split at 5 tonnes. A minibus with 8 or fewer passenger seats plus the driver's is Class 2; any more passenger seats and it moves up to Class 3.

A caravan or trailer adds nothing, because you pay for the vehicle doing the towing. Every price below is for one crossing in one direction.

There are no booths on either bridge: cameras and sensors read number plates and merseyflow stickers as you cross. A guest payment needs only the plate. A pay as you go account, opened online or in the Quick Pay app, takes no deposit and can hold several vehicles with optional auto-pay, but a car still pays the full £2.40.

Pre-pay is where the discount starts. Each vehicle costs £5 to register plus £20 of opening credit, which is spent on crossings and refunded if it is unused when you close the account. Monthly passes are for Class 2 only, can be bought through the merseyflow website or app, and last a calendar month from purchase, so a pass bought on 26 March ends on 25 April. A pass belongs to one vehicle and cannot be transferred.

Staff take payments on 01928 878 878 from 8am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 6pm at weekends and on bank holidays, with an automated line at other times. The walk-in centre at Howard Court, Manor Park, Runcorn WA7 1SJ opens 9am to 7pm on weekdays and keeps the same weekend hours as the phones. Cash is taken only there and at Payzone outlets, and cheques are not accepted.

Merseyflow's own illustration is a driver crossing four times a day: 120 one-way trips at the £2.15 sticker price cost £258, so the £110 unlimited pass saves £148 that month. A weekday commute sits much closer to the break-even point. The £75 off-peak pass covers only 10am to 4pm and 7pm to 7am on weekdays, plus weekends and public holidays, so rush-hour crossings fall outside it.

A Penalty Charge Notice goes to the registered keeper when a crossing is not paid by 11.59pm the day after. It is £50 plus the toll, and the toll stays owed at every stage below.

To challenge it, make a representation within 28 days of service, in writing as the notice explains or on merseyflow's Make a Representation page. That freezes the penalty and its time limits while merseyflow decides, which it says takes up to 56 days from receipt, and a rejection letter explains how to appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. Once a Charge Certificate is issued, merseyflow has no legal duty to consider a representation, though it may where there are reasonable grounds.

The Local User Discount Scheme, or LUDS, gives eligible Halton residents unlimited personal crossings of both bridges for a yearly fee. You must live in a Halton property in council tax bands A to F, hold a valid UK driving licence, provisional included, and be the registered keeper of a car or small van under 3.5 tonnes registered to you there. Each eligible resident can register one vehicle, and a LUDS plan cannot sit alongside a Blue Badge plan.

Homes in bands G and H may get help from the Halton Local User Discount Support Scheme when household income is below the benefit cap. A lease agreement, a company letter confirming your sole use, or a Motability document can stand in for the V5C, and a council tax bill in someone else's name is accepted if the address matches.

The first year costs £12. New plans are enrolled in auto-renewal, which cuts the renewal to £10 once Direct Debit is set up and saves resending documents; opting out means £12 and fresh documents every year. A fair use policy lets the council ask for proof of personal use once a plan passes 900 crossings in a year.

Yes, once it is registered and only when the holder is on board. The Blue Badge plan costs £5 once and covers one vehicle per badge holder, which need not belong to the holder; a relative driving it alone pays the toll. Register online, at the walk-in centre or on 01928 878 878 with copies of both sides of the badge, and send the new badge when it is renewed.

Badges held by organisations cover only specially adapted vehicles taxed in the DVLA's disabled passenger vehicle class. The 2011 order behind the scheme also exempts the vehicles below, whose operators apply for an exempt account at £5 per vehicle.

Mersey Gateway Bridge opened in October 2017 and the refurbished Silver Jubilee Bridge (the old Runcorn bridge) became tolled at the same time. Tolls were unchanged for seven and a half years until a 20% increase on 1 April 2025 (approved by Halton Borough Council 10 February 2025), when the PCN rose from £40 to £50 and the charge certificate from £60 to £75. Future changes are to be considered every three years.

Halton Borough Council sets the tolls and pays Merseylink an annual unitary charge to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the crossing, a project it costs at £1.86 billion over 30 years from 2014 to 2044. Tolls are the main income, but a Department for Transport grant fills the gap: the council says the project would make a significant annual loss without it. Of £138 million in operating grants for 2017 to 2023, £85.35 million was used and £44.75 million returned, and £67 million covers the three financial years from April 2024.

After 2044 the council would in principle support removing the tolls, if all financial obligations are met and the government commits to paying for maintenance. The April 2025 rise of 20% was the first in seven and a half years, below the 40% cumulative RPI inflation merseyflow quotes, and tolls are now reviewed once every three years barring exceptional circumstances.

The Mersey Gateway Bridge opened at 00:01 on Saturday 14 October 2017, tolled from the first minute, with three lanes each way at 60mph about 1.5km east of the old crossing. The Silver Jubilee Bridge, built in 1961 and carrying the A533, closed as the new bridge opened for the first major refurbishment in its history, which included the first replacement of its hanger cables.

By 10 March 2021 it was open again and operating as a toll bridge, with one lane each way, a dedicated cycle lane and a 30mph limit. Existing merseyflow plans and stickers carried over to it with nothing to change.

Breaking down on the Mersey Gateway Bridge means pulling over to the left, switching on the hazard lights and calling Merseylink on 0330 6780676. Its byelaws forbid anyone but Merseylink recovering or repairing a vehicle on the bridge, and recovery fees apply.

Not in Halton. The council's 2010 project leaflet called the Silver Jubilee Bridge the only route for cars across the Mersey through the borough, and it now charges exactly what the Mersey Gateway does. Downstream, the Mersey Tunnels between Liverpool and the Wirral are tolled too, at £2.40 for a Class 1 vehicle paying cash or card from 1 April 2026.

Upstream, the untolled road bridges are in Warrington. Long-distance traffic can use the M6 over the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey on the Thelwall Viaduct, but National Highways is running a 24-hour contraflow at 40mph around junctions 20 and 21 from 12 October 2026 until the winter of 2027 to 2028 while it replaces the joints. Merseyflow publishes no detour distance, and for a regular driver the saving is in the plan rather than the route.

Most merseyflow penalties come from one of these assumptions.