Aberdeen plans road toll
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Your support makes all the difference.Road pricing is being considered by councillors in Scotland to pay for a 17.5-mile route around Aberdeen. The Western Peripheral road, costed at pounds 80m, is unlikely to be financed by the Scottish Office; instead, councillors commissioned a report into alternative funding.
Simple "cordon tolls" - where motorists pay before joining a road - have been considered, as well as more sophisticated tolling technologies.
Making motorists pay for using roads has become a regular feature of councils' plans to raise revenue and tackle congestion. Authorities in Bristol, London and Edinburgh have all put forward road-pricing schemes.
However, environmentalists said that Aberdeen's move is "going about the problem in the wrong way". Simon Festing, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, said: "Some of the money, preferably all of it, raised should be used to fund public-transport schemes."
Randeep Ramesh, Transport Correspondent
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