Dancing Gorilla Song Protesting M25 Crossing Congestion Aims for Xmas Number 1

UK – We reported in October how a spoof news site had recorded a comedy song lambasting the state of congestion at the infamous M25 Dartford Crossing to the east of London. Now, after being viewed over 1.2 million times on Facebook and Youtube the Southend News Network (SNN) and singer Annie Humphrey’s have teamed up with Sony to release the protest song in an attempt to make it the UK’s official Christmas number one!

The SNN’s ‘Chief Reporter’, who disguises his identity with a gorilla mask and is seen dancing in the video for the song, said in a statement on the SNN website that:

“Dartford Tolls, a festive tune sung by the mega-talented Annie Humphrey, is basically a two-minute pi** take about the extortionate toll charges, the long queues, the broken promise that it would be free, and above all else the general cr*pness of the Thames river crossings that join Essex to Kent.

“It doesn’t matter whether you prefer the tunnel or the bridge, our tune sums up EXACTLY what you are thinking every time to use it and think ‘why?’

“The song is being released for charity, with all proceeds split evenly between the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Shelter. The BHF is a particularly poignant cause as our singer Annie’s father passed away suddenly due to cardiac failure virtually eight years to the day before the song’s release date.

The Dartford Crossing has a chequered history and has been a byword for congestion misery for generations of haulage drivers and commuters. The first tunnel opened in 1963, with a second in 1980 and the Queen Elizabeth bridge addition in 1991. It is consistently the busiest crossing in the UK with an average of 160,000 vehicles crossings per day according to the AA, substantially exceeding its design capacity and suffering heavy congestion issues as a result.

The removal of toll booths and the chokepoint on the M25 motorway they created, together with the introduction of vehicle recognition charging technology in 2014, had been hoped to alleviate this situation but the problem of traffic jams has, if anything, become worse since then. The excessive delays have raised the intensity of discussions over a new River Thames crossing downstream from Dartford.

In many ways, the Dartford Crossing epitomises decades of numerous British Governments’ inability to create a cogent and long term transportation plan for the UK, rather relying on ‘patch up’ fixes to issues as capacity is exceeded and commerce negatively affected by choked infrastructure. Having suffered for so many years from the terrible congestion that blights the crossing it seems likely that the protest song will get a warm reception from those who have to endure it.

Anyone interested in purchasing the song can do so on itunes, Amazon, Spotify and Deezer.

Photo: Your typical Dartford Crossing user. With thanks to SNN