M6 Toll road owners seeking an exit, reports suggest
THE future of the M6 Toll is in doubt this morning with well-informed reports suggesting it has been put up for sale for around £2bn.
The troubled project – Britain’s first toll motorway – is effectively run by a consortium of banks after they took ownership of the road from Midlands Expressway Ltd and now it appears that they are looking to sell it on.
The 27-mile route between Cannock and Coleshill in the West Midlands opened in 2003 and cost £900m to build.
It was built to relieve over-capacity problems on surrounding motorways, notably on the M6 around junctions seven, eight and nine, but lorry firms have argued that its charges are too high and have largely boycotted it.
Car drivers are charged £5.50 to use the road during the week and HGVs £11.
The toll road has lost money each year but its user numbers have increased. The latest figures show 52,735 vehicles used the road between October and December last year, compared with 45,890 in 2014.
It was revealed last autumn that the new West Midlands Combined Authority had ambitions to make the road free, something which it argued would be of huge benefit to the regional economy.
