Birmingham Friends of the Earth West Midlands Transport Campaign

The latest developments on this ongoing campaign is that MEL no longer have a contractor to build the road on their behalf. The contract has to be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Communities and we believe there is a deadline for expressions of interest of April 3rd.

We are working hard on the banks named in the consortia and are now receiving replies from them. It is clear we are at the early stages of this process and the more pressure we place upon the stronger our case. The Alliance has organised a number of awareness raising events outside the interested Banks along the route and this will be ongoing. Please write to any bank with which you have any connection asking them not to fund this controversial scheme.

Midlands expressway Limited issues a statement on Friday 3rd March indicating that they no longer had a contractor to build the road. The controversial project to build a northern relief road for Birmingham has suffered a serious setback after the building contractors pulled out in a row over costs.

Yesterday's development is the latest blow to the country's first private toll road, which has already been delayed three years by environmental protests and a public inquiry, during which time the original 1992 contract ran out. Work on the road is now expected to begin around the start of next year while only last week there were confidently saying that work would start in October 2000.

The row will disappoint ministers, who are keen to see the private sector play a greater part in big investment projects. The decision to go ahead with this project was made in July 1997 not three months after Labour winning the election on a no BNRR ticket. This was the first of many serious U turns by this Labour administration and will probably cost them heavily in the highly sensitive seats of the West Midlands at the next election. Ministers should learn this lesson well as they deliberate over terminal 5 at Heathrow which will probably be decided early in the next Parliament.

Midland Expressway Limited, the developers of the road, are due to re-advertise the contract in the OJEC after falling out with the original team of Kvaerner and Italstrade.

“We'd like it to get done quickly because it's about tackling the congestion problems around Birmingham, but ultimately it's for MEL to sort out,”

said a Department of Transport official.

It could take months to renegotiate a deal and MEL is still in talks with banks over financing the scheme, now expected to cost up to £700m. The budget for the 26-mile alternative to a congested section of the M6 in the Midlands has risen from an original estimate of £350m. MEL, jointly owned by Macquarie Bank of Australia and Autostrada of Italy, played down the threat of further delays.

“Construction of BNRR is scheduled to begin in late 2000, early 2001, and will be completed in 2004. The objective is to fit the process within that timetable,”

said Tom Smith, MEL's managing director.

Mr Smith could not confirm the reason for the breakdown, believed to be because the contractors were demanding too much money. This could mean that MEL are trying to drive down costs in order to get banks on board. This could mean significant design changes especially at junctions and the possibility of poorer lighting and no porous asphalt to lower costs. This is all speculative as the details of the contract are held in a highly secretive document known as the concession agreement.

“There have been a lot of changes to the project and the parties involved since 1992,”

he said.

“We are as confident as ever that BNRR will be a great success both commercially and as a vital piece of transport infrastructure.”

Chris Crean, campaigner with Friends of the Earth in the West Midlands, which has led the protests against the scheme, said:

“We believe this is a fundamentally flawed scheme. It fails to resolve traffic problems and it's highly environmentally damaging, but this suggests it's also going to be hard to build and finance the road.”