Glasgow City Council considering Clyde Tunnel toll to boost income

A Clyde Tunnel toll for drivers living outside Glasgow and a congestion charge are among the ideas being considered as politicians look to boost the council’s income.

Glasgow City Council will set its budget for 2025/26 on Thursday, with council tax set to rise to fund investment in the city.

City treasurer Ricky Bell, SNP, believes the local authority must also find ways to grow its revenue for future years because “if we sit and do nothing, the council budget will just get smaller and smaller and smaller”.

Consultation is being held on a proposed tourist tax, with a 5% levy on overnight stays in the city under consideration. It could raise £11m per year but is unlikely to be rolled out until 2027.

A political oversight group set up last year is now looking at other options to raise cash.

Cllr Bell said: “In the bizarre world that is Glasgow City Council, we are responsible for the Clyde Tunnel even though it’s a national infrastructure.

“One of the things we are looking at, and we’ve modelled a bit of this, is could we put a toll on the tunnel? A toll that isn’t paid by Glaswegians.

“You can do that with number plate recognition software, and if your car is registered at an address in Glasgow, then you don’t get charged. If you are in a suburb where they’ve maybe got a wee bit more money, then you’ll get charged.”

The city’s SNP group has previously raised the issue of the Clyde Tunnel with the Scottish Government.

Funding received for operation and maintenance is the same amount per kilometre as for a standard stretch of road, which it has been estimated leads to an annual shortfall of around £820,000.

Cllr Ruairi Kelly previously said he wanted it to be funded like a trunk road, which are maintained by Transport Scotland, or the alternative would be to consider tolling.

Cllr Bell said the council doesn’t have “the legal ability to do that, but we are obviously campaigning with the government”. It is also considering a congestion charge, which would require government rule changes.

He believes a proposal for congestion charging needs to be developed so the council can “go to the government and say this is how it would work.”

A congestion charge could be a fee paid by most vehicles that enter a specified zone between certain hours.

Other revenue-raising ideas, like a workplace parking levy or double council tax on holiday homes, aren’t as suited to Glasgow, Cllr Bell said.

He said a workplace parking levy “doesn’t really stack up very well for us”, adding: “We need to have solutions that work for Glasgow and things like tourist tax, congestion charging, tolling on the tunnel are the big ones that would make quite a difference to the amount of money we get.”

The city treasurer claimed there is “nothing on the ten-year horizon that makes me think the government is going to be in a position to give us any more money”.

“If you look at the ten-year, I don’t see anything that’s going to make the economy significantly better, anything that would mean the government will have more money in Westminster to invest,” he said.

“If they don’t have that money to invest, we don’t get the consequential to Scotland, and therefore, they don’t have the ability to give us any more money.”

He continued: “If the city doesn’t start to raise its own revenue, then we are never going to get ourselves to where we want to be.

“We are having a lot of discussions at the moment about private sector investors who want to come and invest in the city as well. Once people start to see some of that being successful and coming off and improving the city, the more that will encourage other people to come to it as well.”