CROSSINGS over the River Mersey by using Mersey Gateway and Silver Jubilee bridges reached a new high this summer.

More than 6.51million journeys were made by residents, commuters and visitors from July to September.

This is the highest number of crossings recorded since Mersey Gateway opened in October 2017, breaking the previous record of 6.35million crossings from April to June this year.

Traffic levels on Silver Jubilee Bridge are also back to normal, with 340,000 journeys made in September after it fully reopened – the joint highest since it was changed to one lane in each direction.

In addition, 79,000 vehicles now cross the Mersey in Halton every weekday, with 85 per cent of them using Mersey Gateway Bridge.

More than 97 per cent of journeys were paid for on time, with the vast majority of people paying for their journeys by midnight the day after they cross.

Neil Conway, chief executive of Merseyflow, said: “We are coming up to the sixth anniversary of the opening of Mersey Gateway Bridge.

“Customers are continuing to take advantage of our pre-pay plans with auto top-up to make paying for their crossings easier and decrease the risk of receiving a penalty charge notice.

“In our recent customer satisfaction survey, 89 per cent of this group said it was easy or very easy to pay for their crossings.

“Overall, 71 per cent of our customers in the same survey found the standard of Merseyflow’s service to be excellent or good.

“This is a really positive reflection on the hard work of our team and the value of the automated payment options we have in place to make paying for a journey as easy as possible.”