Toll Hunter

I would like to own a Toll Bridge (See 'Wishful thinking at Christmas'- December 24th Blog) .

A fanciful and vague notion you may think.

An actual opportunity to get involved with the day to day running of a bridge may be rare enough but to have a chance to buy and own one outright may be virtually impossible. This is because of

1) the strategic importance of crossing points nationally,
2) where old Toll bridges have been by-passed by modern structures and road networks and are no longer viable for income generation ,
3) the perceptions of potentially prohibitive costs of repair and maintenance costs, and
4) the inevitable insurances and liabilities.

I would hazard a guess that, in the UK, there exists only a single figures number of bridges that could even be marketed for sale.

A recent high profile example was the 1779 built and 1797 rebuilt Whitney on Wye Toll Bridge in Herefordshire which a couple bought, funded by the sale of their own house for £400,000 in January 2012.

The initial motivation for the acquisition appears to have been an instant emotional connection with a romantic setting, a beautiful piece of 18th Century civil engineering of Grade II Listed status, a 2 bed toll-keepers cottage and a landed area, including riverbank, of 1.1 acres. The bridge has had comparatively few owners in its history and one family managed to hold onto it for 180 years. The sellers, a company, had spent around £300,000 on restoration and overhaul of the single carriageway crossing point following their takeover in 2002 which will have been of major reassurance to the buyers. There is little threat from competition in that the nearest other crossing points are 4 and 6 miles up and downstream respectively.

What brought the case to the attention of the media was the financial return from the ownership of a Toll Bridge.

The unique circumstances of Whitney on Wye gave it the profile of perhaps one of  the best investments of all time.

An Act of Parliament in 1774 established a framework to encourage Private Investment in the road and transport infrastructure of England. The Prime incentive, sweet and sugar coated was a complete exemption from taxation to any individual or consortium who funded a project which would benefit a local, regional and national economy. Any and all taxation was included.  A wise strategy for a Government of the time but now very much a massive loophole for the current administration some 233 years later.

The Wye bridge crossing is used on average by around 200 vehicles a day, mostly local traffic movements but in a tourist area and with a wide and fluctuating seasonal volume. The tariffs were at the time of acquisition 10p per bike, 20p for a motorbike and 80p for cars and light good vehicles. In the summer months the income levels were reported at £2000 per day.  The gross income is reputed to be around £100,000 per year and with the concessions from 1774 still in place, the only outlay is for maintenance and man-power.

The investment returns speak for themselves putting many Buy to Let propositions and schemes which seem too good to be true- (because they are) into the category of a reckless gamble.

Having to continuously leave the cottage to collect tolls could constitute a down-side for the business of owning a bridge unless sit-ups,  meeting people and accounting are three particular life-skills to be enjoyed. The previous owners did bring the operational side into the 21st century with an automatic coin operated barrier leaving more opportunity for the subsequent incumbents to enjoy the notion and location of their small, idyllic and cash-cow empire.