Posted by Kirsten Gibbs Last updated 4th January 2023 reading time
The reason we pay tolls on estuary crossings like Dartford, Humber and Cardiff, is because until very recently, most freight got shipped along our coasts. Anyone who could afford a carriage and later a car, could also afford to go the long way round.
There's no reason we couldn't transport most of our freight coastally again, except that we tend to assume that progress only takes one route. That we must ditch everything we ever did before, and use only new things.
That's not true of course, we can recycle ideas, methods and technologies from the past.
