Dear Editor, Derek Bennett is correct that the M6 Toll has failed to improve traffic conditions across the region but he is wrong in almost every other particular. (Post, June 16)

He is wrong to blame the last Labour government for the tolling regime which was the result of the concession agreement signed with Midland Expressway Ltd under the Conservatives in 1992. Labour inherited that concession agreement and (to their discredit) went along with it.

Most substantially he is wrong to suggest that the reason the M6 remains congested is the cost of the M6 Toll. The predicted level of traffic on the M6 was always going to dip slightly after the M6 Toll was built and then rise back to the level of 160,00 vehicles per day. That is because most of the traffic on the M6 is either travelling within or accessing places in the West Midlands conurbation, at peak times something like 80 per cent. Any small reduction in traffic from the M6 Toll was always going to be replaced by traffic moving onto the M6 from local roads, which would themselves then fill up again. The dip might have been slightly deeper without the toll but it would have still been marginal compared to the huge amount of potential traffic on the whole West Midlands network.

The purpose of the M6 Toll was always to provide a quicker route for people wanting to avoid the West Midlands. In fact the journey time savings since suggest that most of the time you’re paying for very little gain, less then ten minutes in most cases. And in that sense we have ended up with an expensive white elephant through the English countryside – something I remember predicting at the Public Inquiry.

Derek Bennett’s solution is to spend £1 billion buying back the road. That is taxpayer’s money which could be spent on a host of desperately needed public transport schemes. When I was Vice-Chair of the Regional Transport Partnership, Government was offering that sort of money and we had plenty of worthwhile projects to spend it on rather than putting it into Midland Expressway’s pockets as Mr Bennett suggests. Many of those projects have still not been built and still need funding.

And what would be the result of buying the M6 Toll? There would be another small dip in congestion on the M6 before it peaked again at 160,000 vehicles a day where it was before the M6 Toll and where it is now. The M6 Toll would become another congested road through the Midlands and the time and reliability benefits (such as they are) would cease.

So how can we make travelling around the West Midlands conurbation better? We need serious investment from Government and we need the sort of joined up public transport approach which we see in London. There is a long way to go to get that but the M6 Toll should have taught us one thing. We aren’t going to get there by building more roads or cramming more cars onto the one we’ve got.

Gerald Kells

West Midlands Policy Officer

Campaign to Protect Rural England

Walsall