Plan on way for M6 Toll link

Bosses at Britain's first pay-as-you-drive road are hoping reveal plans for a massive extension from Cannock bypassing the South Staffordshire village of Featherstone by the end of next year.

The M54 link road with the M6 Toll will be free for drivers to use when it is built by 2014 and could play a vital role in the success of Wolverhampton's i54 business park.

It would take traffic along an estimated three-mile route away from the heavily congested A460, which currently links the motorways and travels close to villages like Featherstone.

Tom Fanning, chief executive of Midland Expressway Ltd, which runs the M6 Toll, said: "We think we are able to open in around 2013 or 2014 and this is being discussed with the Highways Agency.

"It will of course have to go through proper consultation channels and we hope to be able to look at that late next year.

"The A460 is full of traffic all the time so this link road would take traffic from Junction 1 of the M54 to Toll Junction 8 at Cannock.

"We believe this will be welcomed by people in Featherstone.

"There will also be huge benefits for the i54 in Wolverhampton and for the regeneration of Telford.

"We said when we re-funded the M6 Toll in 2006 we would put the funding in for this link road and it will form part of between £112m and £120m of projects in this region."

Designs and budgets for the scheme are still at an early stage.

Earlier this month the Department for Transport had to reassure firms and commuters the link road would go-ahead after confused roads minister Tom Harris mixed the scheme up with a long-scrapped plan to build a toll Manchester-Midlands motorway and appeared to suggest the M54 link would not go ahead.