Hauliers hit out over new rise on M6 Toll
Saturday 29th January 2011, 6:43PM GMT.
Haulage companies today hit out at the latest price rises on the M6 Toll road and insisted they will carry on avoiding it when charges go up. Monday to Friday, from 6am till 11pm, motorbikes will pay £3 and cars £5.30 from March 1 – up 30p.
Class 3, 4, and 5 drivers – which includes cars with trailers, vans, and HGVs – will be hit the hardest with an increase of 60p across all mainline and small junctions. Between Monday to Friday, from 6am till 11pm, a car with a trailer will pay £9.60, vans will pay £10.60, and HGVs will pay £10.60.
Stafford-based haulage company Stan Robinson says it seldom uses the road and new fees will do nothing to lure back businesses.
Company director Mark Robinson said: “We might use it on the off chance we’re running late, but 99.9 per cent of the time we do not use it.
“It would have to be something more like £5 before we did. When you have as many wagons as we have it just doesn’t make economic sense.”
Irene Whorton of South Staffs Freight, based in Lynn Lane, Shenstone, said the charges were too high for the firm to use the route.
“When you’re paying £10 for a tiny bit of diesel, it just doesn’t make sense to use it,” she said.
Edmund King, AA president, said the increase is another squeeze on the motorist and comes at exactly the wrong time.
He said: “This latest toll increase could backfire as it may put off many cash-strapped drivers from using the M6 Toll so ironically revenue may fall. Last quarter just 38,000 vehicles per day were using the road albeit that bad weather probably deterred some.”
Tom Fanning, CEO of Midland Expressway Limited, said: “Following the recent 2.5 per cent VAT increase, we are making a necessary adjustment to our toll rates. The toll increase of 3.5 per cent is in line with inflation.”
The road cost £2 for a car to use when it opened in 2003 and was designed to take up to 100,000 vehicles.
From Junction 11A on the M6 near Cannock, rejoining the M6 at Junction 3A at Coleshill it runs 27 miles.
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Reducing your prices will encourage more usage.
Increasing your prices will incourage less usage.
Common sense tell everybody that so why can’t Midland Expressways Limited CEO see that?
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I have always tried to avoid this abomination and misuse of space when driving on the motorway. The problem which causes the most grief is it has been built to force drivers to use it unless they turn off the motorway. When unsuspecting and unfamiliar drivers approach the toll road they are conned into driving forward on the motorway finding themselves without warning on a costly excuse for a short cut alleging time saving and no delay. The M6 should not be a turning off the motorway, it should be continuous without being led onto a fairground ride. I urge all drivers to avoid like the plague.
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Agree 100% I knew the road but when it first opened I found myself on it, the road layout is made to force you on the toll road the sooner this company goes bust the better but I suppose our stupid politial masters will bail them out at our expense like they did to the banks, bonuses are back in.
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Completely agree.
Let’s dream that there is a compulsary purchase of this road and open it up for free!
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It is like they don’t want traffic on the Toll Road? Bring the price down and more vehicles will use it. Hardly rocket science. Two years the Roadworks have been on the the M6 J10 – J7 and it has not stoppped the volume of traffic one bit. The Toll Road had a massive oppportunity here to take some of the volume off the M6 but failed to see this and put prices up and up. The people at the top need to go back to business school and re-learn the basics. You have a product which could make a lot of money if it had a price structure which was value for money. At the moment it is not.
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This just proves what a mistake the PFI/DBFO contract was!
The then government let this on a very loose contract where toll setting was purely in the hands of the operator.
As numbers of users drop, the price will continue to go up so they make the required yearly amount.
I suggest all the 38,000 all stop using this road for at least a month to prove that the power of choice still exists.
This road should be free for HGV’s, if you, like I do, use the M6 every day, the majority of the queues are caused by HGV’s. It’s not there fault, rail freight lines are not used (see Telford Rail Freight Depot), so road haulage continues.
The recent ‘developments’ to the M6 (circa £150million?) could have been avoided if the toll had been controlled properley. Yet another example where government (irrespective of which party is in power) has short term unseuccesful solutions to long term problems!
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Thanks, Midlands Expressway. This is just a step too far. I have now been able to change working patterns in order to cut my regular usage from 4 times a week to once per fortnight. It’s just way too expensive.
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Have I missed something?
Prices up to a level which is not really encouraging use of the toll road. I must agree with comments made above. Can I also thank our labour mp who promised me (all those years ago) that if a labour goverment came to power the road would never be built..but it was.
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lets face it politicians promises are not worth anything now.
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Their logic is simple. If you can get the same money from less motorists and ditch the HGVs completely, you don’t have the wear and tear on the road surface, hence less maintenance, less staff on the toll ‘plazas’ (that word always makes me laugh when describing a bunch of huts taking money) and you can get more money for providing less of a service!
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Couldnt agree more!
The M6 is mostly on structure too in this area, so the maintenance is a lot higher and also well overdue.
They should swap the M6 for the toll, and get those greedy expressway bosses to pay for the maintenance on the raised sections of the existing roads!
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Regarding “conned into using it” – around Brownhill on the A5 there are signs that say Lichfield and take you to the toll road. I followed the signs – until I realised that I was being needlessly directed onto the toll road, I then went all the way around the roundabout and back onto the A5.
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