Why the Net has the advantage in the ‘Undies world’
- Shopping blogger Emma Iannarilli
M6 Toll fee goes up again
Saturday 30th January 2010, 10:35AM GMT.
Car drivers will be charged £5 to use the M6 Toll road from March following the sixth price rise on the motorway in just seven years.
The new 30p increase for cars will make it £5 to use the route midweek between 6am and 11pm.
For lorries and vans using the £900million route the rise is 60p to £10.
There will be no rise for motorbikes but cars with trailers will go up 60p to £9.
Midland Expressway Ltd said the new rates would apply from 6am on Monday, March 1, on the 27-mile motorway between Cannock and Coleshill.
The last rise on the privately-funded road was a year ago.
MEL is freezing its rates for nights and weekends and is offering a discount of five per cent for electronic tag account holders.
All rates at local junction toll plazas are unchanged.
MEL chief executive Tom Fanning said today: “The M6 Toll opened in late 2003 and still remains the most reliable route through the West Midlands.
“The M6 Toll remains excellent value for money to avoid the congested M6. We continue to offer all customers a five per cent discount per trip through the use of an electronic tag. With this, a £5 trip would cost £4.75.”
MEL, which built the road, has the Government concession to run it until 2054 and is wholly owned by the Macquariex Infrastructure Group of Australia.
The Saturday and Sunday charges are: Motorcycles £2.50; cars £4.50; and vans and lorries £9. The night rate is: Motorcycles £1.50; cars £3.50; and vans and lorries, £8.
By John Corser
Sponsored Links
UK News
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Got to be the biggest white elephant this country has ever produced! Way to much overpriced!
Report abuse
How can they justify this increase? It’s pure greed and they know people will pay rather than queue on the M6.
Report abuse
I think more people would rather queue on the M6 rather than suffer highway robbery by the toll baron’s to use the M6 Toll, even during the current extensive roadworks.
Report abuse
surely now with the increase of problematic issues of the M6 around Birmingham it is time for the goverment to compulsery purchase this motorway with the huge tax money revenue they take off road users . Thus helping local and national haulage and making the motorways more efficient,free flowing and accessible to the majority and not the minority . Dont let them bull you with figures that there are more and more users. The question is how many use it compared to how many could use it if it was free for the public
Report abuse
The government should NOT buy this white elephant – we don’t really need it.
Let MEL squirm and suffer.
The M6 is fine most of the time, the occasional bottlenecks don’t warrant the stupid amount spent on the toll road.
It was only built because some constructors bribed the tories way back in the dying days of the thatcher/major era and the incoming labour government inherited signed contracts it would have cost millions to buy out.
The only way this should pass into public ownership is for MEL to go bust and for the rump assets (one road, hardly used) to pass to HMG free of charge if no-one else buys them up before 2054.
Report abuse
They CAN justify it because the people that work there are as much entitled to a pay rise as the rest of us.
Report abuse
Or they work there for the discounted/free use of the road? BTW NO ONE is entitled to a pay rise. It is not a given right to gain an increase.
Report abuse
The cost of operating the facility will have increased too. It is a business, not a charity.
Report abuse
Not suprised by the increase. Costs go up for them and they are a business, they will pass the cost increases on.
Those who don’t want to pay can simply use the public funded other motorways or roads.
Not as if we didn’t have a choice.
Report abuse
Number 3, Mike, fine government could buy this motorway. With what though? Already more than enough debt.
Free for the public but perhaps adding a few pence on per litre of fuel to pay for it – will that please you? Or just add a couple of percent on to income tax basic rate perhaps?
Report abuse
It should be free while the current M6 is under repair. It should be free until the only other option is fixed. While the current choices remain it is almost a monopoly for the MEL. I wonder how many contractors and owners of this M6Toll are connected to government in the area? I have used the road and enjoyed the experience – but only have a reason to use it once a month. I truly feel for the people who have to use it every day for work, another levy on working people. Maybe we should all quit using it and bring the middle of England to a stop by overloading the M6/M5 junction?
Report abuse
This should never have happened. Roads should be built for the use of road tax payers. The purpose of this relief road was to allow through traffic to avoid the Birmingham motorway junctions. The idea is sound and would instantly reduce the M6 problems that we still suffer from. Refusing to pay constantly increasing fees sends out the message for the future – No Toll Roads!
Report abuse
Why should I pay for something when it should be free.
Paying £5 to use the toll road I would rather just use the M6 and pollute the world.
The government will always be dishonet no matter which party.
This is something the governemnt should have made or thogut of to reduce the traffic on the motorway
Report abuse
I don’t care if they treble the toll charge.I now live in Australia.
Good riddance M6.
Report abuse
Simon – sure it could be free. All it would take is for government to pay the company its annual expected turnover each year and they’d have no problem letting you use the road for free while M6 is under repair.
That may need an increase in taxes to pay for it but I’m sure you’d be willing to do that for a free road eh?
This is a private road – people don’t have to use it, can always build their own or travel on other roads, even when there are roadworks or diversions.
The company that own it aren’t a government, they are a company and exist to get paid.
Report abuse
Never used the road – never will – too greedy and too expensive and a total waste of money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report abuse
I have worked in Brum for 21 years, and moved to Shropshire 6 years ago.
My 50 mile commute each way is sheer hell. The toll does make it easier at times, but you queue at the other end to get into Brum.
The roadworks at the moment are also causing severe headaches, with only 1 incident on M6, M5 or M42 to bring the whole network into delay, thus making an hour and a half journey 2-3 hours.
Use the train, thats a good idea, oh, how much? £10 train fare, plus £4 or £6 pound parking means it is actually cheaper to use the car.
Hopefully the new ‘active management’ on the M6 will improve things and make the toll a bigger laughing stock than it already is.
Only in the UK could such a situation be created, 2-3 hours each way by car, train fares and parking so high you need a six figure salary to fund, and only 1 bus per week servicing my village, so you have to drive and park at the station anyway.
I moved to the wrong village, perhaps I should try New Zealand?
Report abuse
Presumably no-one forced you to move 50 miles away from work into a village with few bus services…
The train would be a lot cheaper if you had a season ticket. If you’re doing 100 miles/day commuting then I wouldn’t be surprised if the car is more expensive than the train when you take into account all the costs of running a car at high mileage.
The active traffic management will probably alleviate things a bit, but then it’ll go back to square one when more traffic fills up the extra capacity created.
Report abuse
Interesting that they mention the massive 5 per cent discount they give us tag customers. Odd that they don’t mention the £1 monthly fee they charge us to have a tag in the first place.
I use the M6 Toll most days, just to get a more reliable journey to work (apart from the delays joining and leaving it, as already mentioned by Mat).
I’ve never come across a company that treats its season ticket holders so poorly. Still, I suppose we should be grateful to have a discount at all, as we didn’t get any reduction at all to start with. It feels as if they’ve only given a discount grudgingly and I feel we are very much treated as cash cows and not at all as valued customers. With only a bit of effort, they could have us all praising the company, not bad mouthing them (as I do to everyone I mention the road to).
Report abuse
The M6 Toll route is the biggest waste of time & money. It has not made a single bit of difference to the ever increasing delays on the M6 during rush hours. They really should rename it “the emergency M6″ cos thats the only time I would ever consider using it.
The owners MEL, have delibrately priced it high so as keep traffic volumes low, thus keeping the expensive maintenance of it to a minimum.
As proof of it being a waste time, the goverment has been forced to spend loads of money upgrading the hard shoulder on the current M6 for normal road use to cope with the rush hour congestion.
Why are we so rubbish at making simple things so complicated and expensive in this country? Another terminal 5!
Report abuse
The Toll road has cut a swathe through some of Staffordshires most glorious countryside – how was this ever passed to a private and greedy company – yet another lining of some big-wigs pockets no doubt. What with the exhorbitant fuel costs ever rising, this latest toll road increase is disgusting and another slap in the face for honest tax paying car drivers.
Report abuse
The cost of the toll going up is no different to the cost of anything else going up. There is a choice. For people using the toll road, presumably the time and fuel saved is worth more than a fiver to them otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
“Honest tax paying car drivers” – the taxes you pay as a driver are part of general taxation and no more pay for roads than the VAT on a CD I bought last week. Incidentally, the taxes paid by drivers do not cover the costs imposed by road transport (congestion, accidents, maintenance, emergency services, ill health) so you’re getting a bargain. The costs of driving have hardly risen in real terms over the past 3 or 4 decades, whilst public transport fares have gone up 80% above inflation. It isn’t drivers getting the raw deal…
Report abuse
would it not have been more benificial to drop the toll charges and have more vehicles on there paying a sensible toll charge and re-couping monies that way rather than put it up and get less vehicles on there sheer madness i say
Report abuse
Toll Roads no matter where are always going to do one thing! ….. rush traffic to the first available bottleneck and because of their potential for enormous return on investment will always fall in to the hands of private investors! …. and in Britains instance not always in British hands! …. there is a Toll Road in Canada, the 407 that was built at the Canadian Taxpayers expence and is now owned by a Spanish consortium so to circumvent the hell of Toronto traffic you have to pay a Spaniard to use a Canadian Highway.
You can walk or drive around this for evermore but the answer to this problem lies not with road transport for the masses but a modern efficient Rail network! .. that is until we can evolve the “Beam me up Scotty” method. Britain once had the most comprehensive and efficient rail network for it’s time in the World until those vested interests that you are now complaining about usurped it. Well reinvent it and start moving forward instead of back and bear in mind that it costs far less to build a mile of Railway than a mile of Highway and consume far less real estate………
Report abuse
Devon, if you don’t agree with the increase then simply don’t use the toll road and you won’t have to pay it.
And the company concerned, like you, pays taxes of various kinds.
Report abuse
Martin – There’s always someone who cannot make a decent argument but simply has the childish comment ‘well you don’t HAVE to use it’!
Report abuse
I have only been on the toll road once, mistakenly when I was driving on the M42 northbound towards the east midlands and I missed the turn off to STAY ON THE M42! I then had to pay the toll even though I wanted to turn round.
My main gripe with this road is that driving down the M6 or up the M42 or whatever the public roads are constructed so you automatically end up on this private toll road unless you spot the turn off. Surely this is bordering on illegal and morally wrong.
Report abuse
Excellent point. This must have caught so many motorists out.
It was no doubt designed to be this way intentionally.
Just like the electronic signage stating “M6 Toll Clear” continuously, when the M6 is totally clear too, but as that doesnt raise revenues for anyone it gets no mention!
Report abuse
Martin – I dont agree with what with the govenment has done to this country by selling off huge strips of land to companies to make huge profits – I dont use the toll road on principle and get fed up with people who simlply say ‘if you don’t like it – don’t use it’ this doesn’t get us anywhere.
Report abuse
Six increases in seven years. So it rises less often then council tax, council car parking, road tax, petrol tax, tv licence, beer tax……we’d be worse off if the state took it over….and we have a choice, unlike state taxes whether we want to use it.
Report abuse
Just blow up the M6/M5 junction and start again! I dread to think how many hours,months even years I’ve wasted sitting in traffic! And it will only get worse as the amount of cars keeps increasing!
Report abuse
And yet the argument that you dont have to use it is also a valid one.
We pay taxes for all the other roads. This one we don’t pay for – unless choosing to use it.
In which case you get the journey with perhaps less traffic.
Still, if you want to pay more in general taxes just so you can use it without paying up front, go ahead and hassle government to buy the road for you.
Or you could always build your own road, might cost you a bit more though…..
Report abuse
They hike up the prices and so less people use it. MEL are already mounting up huge debts and will eventually go bust since there mangers can’t seem to grasp the concept of supply and demand.
People need to boycott it more and more until they either realise its too expensive or go bust. The latter will at least mean the government will get to buy it at a cut down price.
Report abuse
I think they have grasped it. It’s called in-elastic demand. In other words, you can put the price up, less people use it, but you still collect more money overall.
Report abuse
just think what a great runway it would make.NO MORE extensions atstansted-gatwick-heathrow WHY NOT
Report abuse