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M6 Toll ‘is a £900m failure’
Tuesday 31st August 2010, 11:30AM BST.
The £900 million M6 Toll road has been an expensive failure, according to a damning report published today.
Drivers are said to be saving an average of just 10 minutes each by using the pay-as-you-go motorway at a cost of £5 for cars.
The first privately-built toll road in Britain, which runs from Cannock to Warwickshire covers a 27-mile stretch and is meant to cut congestion on the M6.
Those travelling south could save up to 40 minutes in rush hour, about half their journey time, according to the Campaign for Better Transport.
But the group’s report says that rather than pay the toll, many drivers prefer to sit on the heavily-congested M6, where traffic is currently down to 50mph between Wolverhampton and Walsall due to the £150m scheme to open the hard shoulder up to traffic.
Use of the toll road has fallen dramatically as prices have gone up from the original £2 charge in December 2003. There were 60,000 drivers a day in 2006 compared with just over 40,000 by the start of this year.
M6 Toll owner Midland Expressway Ltd’s lost £26m last year. But its latest figures show a four per cent rise in traffic between April and June compared with the same period last year – up from 39,581 to 41,195.
The report said: “The M6 Toll has provided so little congestion relief that the Highways Agency has been forced to allocate hundreds of millions of pounds for additional capacity.
“Toll roads are not, and will never be, a solution to congestion on Britain’s roads.”
Richard George, roads and climate campaigner for the group, said: “Our research shows that private toll roads such as the M6 Toll don’t help motorists or the surrounding area, and don’t make money for investors.
“Instead, the Government needs to spend scarce public funds on maintaining the roads we have and giving people good alternatives to car use.”
Midland Expressway was unavailable for comment.
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Why should we be expected to pay to use a relief road when we pay Car ax each year. This money should be spent to improve the road network to make them safer and more efficient for users. we should not have to pay, if the Ministry of Transport rcognises this is a much needed road to relieve congestion on the busiest stretch of motorway in EUROPE then they should provide it free. The other point i would like to make is that when we visit a eupopean country we have oo pay to pay to use their motorway system yet they can come over here and use our roads for free and need no TAX on their vehicles, which is a criminal offence for us.
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Yes Carol, I agree. It seems it’s a one way a street as far as all that goes.
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Completely agree with you Carol. We pay some of the highest fuel prices in the world, extortionate road tax and I pay such a large insurance premium as a 22 year old, male professional driver. The point about other EU drivers not paying road tax is very interesting and something I didn’t know.
The amount we pay to drive, the M6 toll should be free. It would seriously ease the M5/M6 link as it is the busiest road link I have ever experienced and I regularly drive to London, Manchester and Glasgow. If the long distance drivers (south-east to north-west etc) use the toll road it eases the roads for shorter distance drivers using the link. I also frees up the road around Spaghetti Junction during rush hour. Surely the Department for Transports job is to improve the flow of traffic, not cash in on people trying to get to work etc.
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Too right!!
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@Carol Fletcher, France (for example) has an extensive road network which is not as congested as ours, their main motoray routes are primarily toll routes, however, costs are comparitivly lower than the M6Toll in terms of £/Distance.
However, the fact their road network outside the tolls shows the result of not paying any road tax, they aren’t very well maintained. All but the major roads are untouched and have been since the early 1950′s.
I agree in the main, dont pay any road tax and make all motorways tolls or pay road tax and no tolls.
If Midland Expressway reduced the cost of using the tolls then they might see an increase in usage. I’d use it more to get to Lichfield and Nottingham which I do regularly. It takes about 40 minutes off my journey time.
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In addition, air quality would probably improve across the region as the toll runs through green belt land which would help absorb and eliminate the pollution caused by the traffic.
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I am so relieved the M6 toll has been a failure. I said when it was first announced that if it was a success other roads around the country would become tolls as well. We pay enough in fuel duty and excise duty ANYWAY.
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The problem with the M6 is not the through traffic it’s the busy junctions at 10, 9 and the M5. The toll road has not made these junctions less busy. Most of us using the M6 in rush hour are going to work; the toll road goes no where near where we want to be. Those passing through at rush hour are asked to pay £5 for the privilege. The solution is to improve the road network in the area where people need to be, i.e. along the M6 corridor. The current road works may help but what price some clown deciding to make the extra M6 lane Bus or double occupancy only, don’t discount it, the majority of the route from the toll road into Birmingham was converted to single track bus/double occupancy after the toll road was opened! Whilst we have a culture of victimise the motorist there will never be a solution to our congestion.
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You’re meant to put tolls on things you don’t want people to use – like the Congestion Charge in London. The M25 is free – so the sensible message is ‘drive round, don’t drive through’
Building a ring road round Birmingham and then saying ‘please don’t use this unless you have to’ by tolling it is silly.
The ring road should be free, and perhaps Birmingham needs a congestion charge in its centre.
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The toll road is too expensive to use – simple
congestion charges just cause problems
raods that can cope with the volume of traffic is what we need – read what The Magician has written
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The only good news is that the M6 Toll Motorway was one of the original PFI schemes launched by the previous Conservative government, whereby – unlike New Labour’s subsequent all-and-sundry schemes – the contractor bears the risks as well as the costs.
Therefore, it is Midland Expressway rather than the taxpayer who is taking the hit on this one.
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Phew!
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How can they expect people to use this road when most people are on a low wage. People are choosing to stay away and not pay twice. What a joke!
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Except the company is making money before payments to it’s parent company, which rather makes the case of this befuddled transport group (who??) look ridiculous.
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Sorry Andy (comment 3) but you’re wrong about the roads in France, I’ve lived here for the last 6 years. Yes the motorways are very well maintained as the majority of the busy routes are toll roads, but the main roads between towns & small country roads are also very good and regularly re-surfaced & repaired. Motoring in France is cheaper than the UK if you don’t use the motorways a lot but I do & it costs me about £100 per month for the priviledge.
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Entirely agree Simon, find driving on French roads a joy compared to the roads in the UK which are still ridden with potholes and patched surfaces.
Driving from Calais to Poitiers in June was great, smooth toll motorways, much cheaper to use per mile than the M6 Toll and the main roads were in good condition as well, even the small one track road to the Hamlet where our Gite was had been resurfaced since, the neighbours told me it was covered in potholes after the very cold winter, but was resurfaced within a week of the winter weather going.
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I can’t believe they had to commission a very expensive report to tell us what we all already knew. That the M6 Toll motorway was way too expensive to be used on a regular basis. Perhaps if they had set the charge for regular users at a very low rate (50p-75p a time)and a higher charge for less frequent users, then they might have made some money. Unfortunatley the fools that own the M6 Toll, thought they could charge any price thinking we would pay. I would gladly sit in a traffic jam on the normal M6 motorway all day rather than pay the rip-off price of £5 english pounds a time.
Just like everything else in life, you can only charge what people are willing to pay, and I am not willing to pay!
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The only good thing about the M6Toll is that it has taught the politicians not to allow it again! Replacing assets with debt is a regular tactic (look at what some Americans have done with soccer teams). A few years ago, the M6Toll paid its Australian owners a dividend of over £300million on income of about £160million. The M6Toll now has debts in the region of £1billion – future users and future generations will have to pay the interest and the debt. It is all legal in the UK.
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Comes as no surprise really. At £5 for a car and £10 for a lorry the charge is FAR too expensive. Midland Expressways should realise that £2 for a car and £5 for a lorry with plenty of customers is an awful lot better than £5 for a car and £10 for a lorry with no takers!
The whole idea was flawed-a very unwelcome return to the 18th Century Turnpikes, but now it is built Midland Expressways need to cut their prices to stand any chance of rescuing their business
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Midland Expressway seem to have forgotten their basic economics about supply and demand. Yes, they have a monopoly in that they own the only toll road around here, but it is NOT THE ONLY ROAD, and the competition is FREE!
Maybe if they brought down the prices, they may just attract more customers…………
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I can drive my car round trip using the I 80/90 freeway, from Buffalo NY to Chicago IL over 1,080 miles for about $10 USD (FOUR POUNDS) the money goes to upgrade the roads – rest areas and toll booths – I hope I don’t get lost on your M6 TOLL on my next visit could break the bank !!
They even have the same trip/s using the Meggabus for a few pounds.
Maybe call it “The Folly Tolly Road” instead of the M6 Toll
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who in their right mind would pay 5 quid to use a road for 20 minutes!!! when it was a couple of quid that was fine but I am not being ripped off when I can totally bypass that road and drive up along cannock and the a5 for free, we pay enough road tax, petrol ect it was a waste of money everyone said it would be so why is everyone so surprised now!!
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Perhaps Midlands Expressway don’t want too many users… keeps the maintenance cost down.
What alarms me most about this pestilence road is the constant drip of adjustments to neighbouring roads seemingly designed to force non-users onto it. The slip road southbound from the A460 near to J11 has been blocked off so traffic has to wait at the roundabout; a 60mph limit has been put on the A38; the disappearance of groundworks at Wall Island which had been there for years in readiness for an overhead roundabout bypass; very slow light sequences on the A5 at the Burntwood turn.
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yes, all rather suspicious. No other private company would get away with that.
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The smiple fact is its way to expensive, we pay the highest price in europe for petrol one of the highest for tax, dont use it..
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