Queues at the Dartford Crossing will soon become a thing of the past, but it will cost you.

That’s the message from transport bosses who plan to increase charges by a whopping 66 per cent over the next two years.

Years after the previous Labour government went back on a promise to scrap the tolls once the tunnel and QEII Bridge had been paid for, prompting the launch of the Messenger’s Axe the Tax campaign, Whitehall has put forward proposals to increase fees from £1.50 to £2.50 for private cars by 2012.

But in return drivers have been promised an end to traffic misery at the bottleneck - some of the extra cash will be pumped into a new electronic toll system, which would remove the need for barriers.

Transport minister Mike Penning has said he hopes this will be in place within the next 18 months.

Dartford’s new Conservative MP, Gareth Johnson, has been campaigning for the tolls to be scrapped entirely and listed the goal as one of his main election pledges.

“No one welcomes an increase in tolls,” he said. “No one wants to pay more money. But the next best thing is to get rid of the congestion. It’s strangling Dartford, and in order to stop it we need to get rid of the tolls, which these new measures will achieve.”

For the full story, and all the reaction to the price hike, see this week's Dartford Messenger, out Thursday.