THE Government plans to sell the Dartford Crossing within two years.

Gordon Brown made the announcement on today that the crossing is among the assets the Government is “determined” to sell to raise £3 billion.

He said:" We plan a sale of assets to deal with our debt issues.

"And I've said today that £16 billion of assets will be sold within the next two years.

"We've listed a number of assets that we are determined over the next period of time to put into the market place.

"That includes of course, the Student Loan Book, the Dartford Tunnel, the Channel Rail Link, it includes Urenco- subject to security issues being addressed on that."

The decision has been slammed by the Leader of Thurrock Council, cllr Gary Hague, who says the tolls should be scrapped and a sale means that would be unlikely to happen.

He said: “This is the Government shirking their responsibility.

“They have got the nations finances into a mess and they are hoping for a quick windfall to try and stem the nations ever growing debt.

“Thurrock Council has always made its views perfectly clear.

“The tolls should be scrapped.

The congestion has a detrimental effect our air quality and the delays impact on our local economy.

“A new owner would be purchasing the crossing for its revenue stream and it puts a huge question mark over the tolls ever being scrapped.”

Stephen Metcalfe, prospective MP for the Conservatives in Basildon and East Thurrock, has also criticised the decision, and says he will campaign for the tolls to be scrapped regardless of whether the crossing is sold or not.

He said: “In a desperate attempt to correct the Government’s mismanagement of the economy Mr Brown is trying to condemn the residents of Thurrock to pay the tolls forever.

“The Conservatives have campaigned to scrap the tolls as we feel that they add to congestion and are a cause of pollution, if the crossing is no longer in public ownership the chances of ditching the charge will be greatly reduced.”

He added: “I have spoken to Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers and lobbied her hard to make sure she understands the depth of feeling around this issue and asked that she put pressure wherever possible and on whomever possible to try to ensure that the option of scraping the tolls remains open.”