By Justin Dunn

HERE we go again.

Mersey Tunnel users, the vast majority from Wirral, are to be forced to help pay for the already shaky-looking Mersey-tram scheme.

Despite constantly telling us the tunnels are massively in debt - needing the hated tolls to survive - Merseytravel has identified a £40m "surplus" to be used on the city's trams if spending goes over budget.

The Government itself has already voiced doubts about the budget for Merseytram and refused to up its original funding of £170m - hence the need for tunnel tolls cash as security.

But why on earth should Wirral motorists fund a tram system in Liverpool?

Tunnel users were always promised that they would one day be free.

They're not, says Mersey-travel, because debts still owing for constructing the tunnels have spiralled.

So where has the £40m surplus come from?

And wouldn't using those funds to prop up an over-budget Merseytram heap yet more debt onto the tunnels themselves?

The Wirral Globe has long campaigned on behalf of our readers for the tunnels to be made free.

It now seems quite clear that, if the good burghers of Liverpool have anything to do with it, they never, ever will be.

There is no suggestion of the trams, a supposed benefit "to the whole of Merseyside" - in reality an 11-mile route from Kirkby to Liverpool city centre - ever being extended to Wirral.

The stark truth is that tunnel users from Wirral are the least likely people to get any benefit from the trams.

But Liverpool City Council leader Mike Storey never-theless thinks it correct that we should cough up if the plan goes over budget.

That is why the Globe urges all its readers to fill out the coupon on the right and post it to Cllr Storey TODAY.

Cllr Storey is well respected for the unstinting hard work he and his team have put in to turn around Liverpool's fortunes.

But we say he is well off target this time.

If Liverpool wants and needs a tram system, fine. But Liverpool can pay for it.