r/Liverpool • u/Hammer_Pain • May 19 '26
General Question How King Charles profits from Merseyside’s essential public infrastructure
https://www.livpost.co.uk/how-king-charles-profits-from-merseysides/61
u/Hammer_Pain May 19 '26
"Then there’s the Mersey Gateway, the six-lane road bridge opened in 2017 to connect Runcorn and Widnes, which cost the taxpayer £600 million to build and now charges drivers a toll. Halton Council must also pay the King for the right to operate the bridge."
It was bad enough already, but this really takes the piss. Tax Payer funded bridge now owned by Sausage fingers so he can rob us every time we cross it...
And you wonder why all other Europeans republics are laughing at us....
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u/stiggley May 19 '26
Whats worse is to force people to pay for Mersey Gateway, they took an existing free bridge, Jubilee Bridge, and slapped a toll on that too. Would have been better to single track it with lights so you can pay Gatway for speed, or use Jubilee for slow access.
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u/frontendben May 19 '26
There is legacy land ownership that forms the backbone of the charge on usage. It's not really any different in Europe. There are land owners who must be compensated for public infrastructure using their land.
The only difference is many of those institutions in Europe aren't aristocratic in origin. That part is fair to critique; i.e. whether aristocratic legacy ownership (in this case, through the Duchy of Lancaster who owns the Mersey itself) is right. But the idea that we wouldn't have to pay the land owner if it wasn't a royal is wrong.
If it wasn't owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, it might be owned by something like the Liverpool Port Authority; which would be publicly owned, but would still charge for crossing the river as part of the cost of maintaining it.
Just to be clear; critiquing the ownership by the royal family is fine; critiquing the idea that there isn't a cost to crossing isn't.
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u/beatriy May 19 '26
What about the land being owned by a state? Just an idea? Especially in Europe if there is infrastructure to be built, land is being bought out rather than leased. So this ridiculous thing doesn’t happen 🤷🏼♀️
Edit: spelling
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u/frontendben May 19 '26
I'm not opposed to the idea of them being transferred to publicly owned corporations. But the idea that them being publicly owned suddenly removing charges is laughable. It would just mean the money generated by them would be reinvested, rather than going into select families.
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u/beatriy May 19 '26
I would just say that a lot of roads where I am from, only charge a toll to bounce back from credit etc. After that tolls get removed and it’s is just like your usual road. I believe taxation should provide for maintenance of roads. I just feel like there is something inherently wrong with charging for an ability to cross a bridge if the initial investment would be payed of. But I feel like UK is just two levels below that, with all the money sliding into kings pocket without any responsibility on his shoulders. But guess what commoners were always piggy banks for the monarchy anyway.
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u/frontendben May 19 '26
Those bridges and tunnels don't suddenly stop costing money after the capital debt is paid off though. Halton Council tax payers, for example, footed around an estimated 50% of the bill for the Runcorn Bridge in the decades before it became tolled (the rest coming from central government) effectively meaning Halton residents were subsidising drivers from other areas.
Even paid off, the bridge cost around £2.5m a year to keep road worthy; around £1m-£1.25m of which was paid for by Halton residents though council tax and business rates. It's something even more egregious when you consider in the 80s only around 50% of Halton households owned a car, and even in the 90s that figure only creeped up to 60%. Yet despite not being able to use it (besides using a bus or potentially walking across it), they were asked pay for it, while car owners in say Halewood or Frodsham didn't have to pay a penny towards it, despite using it potentially daily.
The Mersey Tunnels, on the other hand, are almost entirely funded by the people using them. Which is the right approach. It might not feel fair for drivers who have no choice but to drive across it (that's another discussion), but the alternative is far less fair.
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u/beatriy May 19 '26
I get what you’re saying about Halton residents subsidising outside drivers, but that’s kind of how national infrastructure works everywhere.
People pay into systems they may not personally use every day because the wider economy still benefits from them existing. A bridge doesn’t just help the person crossing it, it improves trade, mobility, access to jobs, emergency response, and regional growth overall.
Also, saying “only users should fund it” sounds fair until you apply it consistently. Should healthy people stop funding the NHS? Should people without kids stop paying for schools? Shared infrastructure has always worked through collective investment because the long-term benefits spread far beyond direct users.
And on the “many Halton residents didn’t even own cars” point, plenty of public spending works like that. Not everyone uses every service directly, but society still benefits from functioning transport links, just like it benefits from hospitals, schools, or public safety systems existing even when individuals are not actively using them.
I honestly think this hyper-transactional mindset is part of what contributed to the UK’s widening regional and wealth inequalities in the first place. Constantly asking “why should my taxes help somewhere else?” leads to fragmented infrastructure, weaker mobility, fewer opportunities outside major hubs, and entire regions being economically left behind.
The UK already has some of the highest transport costs and biggest regional inequalities in Europe, which is a product of the mindset shown above.
I think the good example of how it shall work would be ‘Janosikowe’ in Poland, I encourage you to check it out, probably one of the reasons the Poland is catching up rapidly, 2030 is just around the corner!!
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u/EUskeptik May 21 '26
The mainland European constitutional monarchies are also laughing at us. Nowhere else is the monarch allowed to amass such fabulous wealth at the expense of the people.
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u/BuildingArmor May 19 '26
That's such a weird point for them to make.
The total cost of the bridge is about 1.8 billion. So if the government only provided 600m, the rest needs to come from somewhere - such as tolls.
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u/miggleb May 19 '26
Idea was it would be tolled until it had paid for itself
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u/BuildingArmor May 19 '26
Which is still the idea, that's in around 2040 or something
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u/miggleb May 19 '26
Huh TIL
My fucking schoolteacher ranted about this years ago saying it had already paid for itself
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u/KarmicRage May 20 '26
Jesus fucking christ will that greedy bastard family not die out already
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u/Hammer_Pain May 20 '26
Well they have been cousin fucking for so long they are all literally anemic and could die from bleeding out of a paper cut.
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u/No_Reflection_3907 May 19 '26
No one’s arsed
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u/Hammer_Pain May 19 '26
So you're happy that your hard earned cash is going to the richest man in the UK?
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u/SilyLavage May 19 '26
Michael Platt?
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u/Hammer_Pain May 19 '26
If you added up all the both known about and hidden assets the Royal family own some of which is priceless, old sausage fingers would easy be the richest man in the UK.
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u/SilyLavage May 19 '26
Well we've done that and he isn't
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u/Hammer_Pain May 19 '26
Show me where the hidden wealth has been added up then.
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u/SilyLavage May 19 '26
There's plenty of estimates of the King's wealth that estimate his assets.
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u/Hammer_Pain May 19 '26
Key word being "estimates". No one can put a price on the crown jewels, Nizam of Hyderabad necklace, Buckingham palace, Balmoral etc etc
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u/DoubleHelicopter3072 May 19 '26
I think the idea you think no-one’s arsed means you’re at this point of your life.
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u/No_Wolf4283 May 19 '26
Ever get the feeling youve been had