M6 Toll a huge failure claims 10-year report

Days before the 10th anniversary of the opening of the M6 Toll – Britain's first pay-to-drive motorway – campaign groups say the 27-mile route between South Staffordshire and Coleshill is proof that toll roads do not work.

The M6 Toll opened to traffic on December 9, 2003. A report by the Campaign for Better Transport says that since a peak in 2006-7, usage has fallen steadily and never reached the 75,000 vehicles a day that were anticipated to use it. The report says that in 2012, the average fell to 29,313 vehicles a day.

However, recent figures from the M6 Toll's operator Midland Expressway show it has enjoyed a boost over the summer and that 44,462 vehicles on average were using it each day.

Sian Berry, Campaign for Better Transport's roads and sustainable transport campaigner, said: "Toll roads don't work, and the experience with the M6 Toll proves as much.

"Despite massive environmental damage and increased noise and air pollution, the supposed benefits for drivers haven't materialised.

"This road has helped no-one, not local people, not drivers and certainly not the company who own it. We're glad to see the Government has finally paid attention to the disastrous experience of the M6 Toll and abandoned plans to toll the A14 bypass."

Chris Crean, from West Midlands Friends of the Earth, said: "The focus then and now has been for inter-urban journeys across the countryside where it is easy to acquire land and lay tarmac. This has failed to address the real problem – traffic and car dependency in our unavoidably space-constrained towns and cities.

"We can and should invest in all the viable alternatives to ensure we all have better quality of life, reduce car dependency and use the planning system to create truly vibrant and sustainable places in which to live. This would have seen enhanced bus, rail and Metro investments, as well as encouraging walking and cycling across the West Midlands conurbation."

The report recommends alternative options to large road-building projects that demonstrate better value for money, including 'smarter choices' programmes of travel planning and traffic reduction and a wide range of rail, bus and active travel infrastructure projects.

The original charge to use the M6 Toll was £2 a time for cars. It is now £5.50.

Midland Expressway chief executive Tom Fanning said the road did not cost taxpayers a penny and that without it, tens of thousands more vehicles a day would be using the congested M6.