M6 Toll road - Five years on

Dec 10 2008 By Alun Thorne, Head of Business

The M6 Toll celebrates its fifth anniversary this week – originally billed as “Fast, effective relief to the M6” but has it lived up to expectations and what are the wider benefits it has helped bring to the West Midlands? Alun Thorne, Head of Business, reports.

Congestion costs the West Midlands more than £2billion every year. Not surprisingly transport chiefs have long sought a solution and five years ago it appeared they found the Holy Grail – the M6 Toll.

The £900million motorway, which bypasses the conurbation between Coleshill in the south and Cannock in the north, was designed to take traffic off the busy M6 corridor through Birmingham and re-direct it onto a free-flowing alternative through north Warwickshire and southern Staffordshire.

There had been widespread opposition to the 27-mile route, from environmentalists and residents. This was overcome – albeit after a High Court battle and stubborn site protests – and on a freezing cold morning in December 2003 then transport secretary Alistair Darling declared the route open.

First through the toll booths was flamboyant Staffordshire developer Fred Pritchard, who headed a parade of his beloved Aston Martins, the iconic sports cars proudly displaying the Union Flag to herald a new era for Britain’s transport network.

Mr Pritchard said the motorway would bring new prosperity to Staffordshire by opening the door to investment.

Five years on and he still holds this view.

“The M6 Toll has brought significant prosperity to southern Staffordshire – Cannock Chase in particular,” he said.

His own company, the Pritchard Group, has benefited considerably with a raft of new developments along the motorway’s corridor, including the Orbital Plaza site, instantly recognisable for its 12-storey Ramada Hotel.

“These developments are creating lasting benefits for the area in terms of jobs and investment – all this would not have been possible had it not been for the toll motorway,” he added.

John de Kanter, chief executive of Staffordshire inward investment agency InStaffs, is another to believe the motorway has had a positive impact on the area.

“The M6 Toll has done a lot to improve accessibility to Stoke-on-Trent and