The new year has begun with yet more problems for the Dartford Crossing’s Dart Charge scheme.

Highways England has apologised after two bemused motorists contacted the Messenger with complaints over the issuing of penalty charge notices (PCNs) during the Christmas period.

Robert Bailey, of West Malling, said he was hit with a PCN even though he believed his account still contained enough credit to make the journey.

“I received an email from Dart Charge saying my account was inactive as I had not used it for one year,” he said.

“Having checked my account before using the crossing I saw I had over £16 in credit and therefore assumed all was OK and that the cost of the crossing would be taken from my account.

“I was then told that a penalty notice had been issued to me, even after they reactivated my account and still held my money.

“Surely a service like this should be more geared to the customer? Especially when infrequent users like myself want to have the account in place to save the worry of having to pay each time I use the crossing.”

Another infrequent user of the crossing, David Stringer, who lives in Derby, had a similar problem.

He received an email saying that his account was being cancelled because he had not used the crossing recently.

“I paid the minimum £10 up-front in 2014 to use the crossing but had £8 left due to not using the crossing lately,” he explained.

“I live 150 miles from the crossing and my intention was to cross more frequently for driving holidays to Europe, but due to Operation Stack I now make other arrangements to avoid Calais, Dover and the crossing.

“I tried to call to discuss maintaining my account as instructed on the said email. I thought they were keeping my £8!”

Highways England confirmed that both issues were errors and that the accounts would be reactivated.

“An error was made in both of these cases and obviously we apologise for that,” said a spokesman.

“The penalty charge notices have been cancelled and we will now be contacting both of these customers.”

The errors are the latest in a long line of issues faced by motorists since the introduction of Dart Charge in 2014.

It is hoped that the traffic woes will be helped by the construction of a new Lower Thames Crossing, with a decision set to be made on its location next month.

Dartford MP Gareth Johnson also secured a House of Commons debate next week to tackle the issue.