PEMBROKESHIRE County Council (PCC) has confirmed the £60.7million deficit in the accounts of the Cleddau Bridge is “notional”, and does not exist.

A meeting of the authority’s Corporate Governance Committee in July failed to clear up the “muddy” situation of the Bridge’s finances, and led to the Wales Audit Office (WAO) saying the authority has further work to do to sort out the confusion.

The WAO had been working with PCC to look at the financial management arrangements of the Bridge, after a member of the public lodged a formal objection to the authority’s 2013-2014 statement of accounts for failing to refer to the £60.7million “accumulated deficit” separately reported in the Bridge ‘extract of accounts’.

The Bridge is governed by the Dyfed Act 1987, which allows three accounting options for the calculation of its financial position.

Based on the figures for 2013-2014, the different options meant the Bridge either had an “accumulated deficit” of £60.7million, an “accumulated surplus” of £9.3million or an “accumulated surplus” of £17.6million – a staggering £80million difference.

A WAO officer referred to the situation as set out by the Act as “a bit vague” and “a very complicated procedure to understand”, but said the organisation was happy to sign the matter off and leave the council to get to the bottom of the matter and choose which accounting option to use.

At July’s meeting, Councillor Bob Kilmister accused PCC of “Mickey Mouse accounting” and referred to the Cleddau Bridge toll as a “stealth tax”.

“For years we’ve been told we had this huge deficit but no-one’s ever set out how the accounts were done and how the decision’s been made,” he said. “In fact we have a considerable surplus and that money hasn’t all been used on the Bridge, and nobody seems to be able to say how the decision on being able to spend that money was made. The situation is extremely muddy.”

On Monday (September 7), a PCC spokesman said: “We are undertaking a comprehensive review of the Cleddau Bridge and its finances. The review will be wide-ranging and will go beyond the issue of the way tolls are managed. The £60m accumulated deficit for 2013/14 is a ‘notional’ figure and does not feature in the Council’s annual statement of accounts.”