Birmingham Friends of the Earth
West Midlands Transport Campaign
|
Alliance
against the BNRR Birmingham Friends of the Earth West Midlands Transport Campaign |
West Midlands Friends of the Earth/Alliance Against the BNRR October 2003
Key Points
Location
The M6 Toll (formerly known as the
Birmingham Northern Relief Road) runs through 27 miles (40 km) of Green Belt
in the West Midlands. It links the M6 just north of Junction 11 in Staffordshire
with the M42/M6 in Warwickshire.
History
The M6 Toll was promoted in the 1980s as a public motorway and an Inquiry was
held in 1988 which gave permission for a public road to be built. It would have
linked with a proposed Western Orbital Motorway (later scrapped) to complete
an orbital motorway around the West Midlands conurbation when linked into the
M42.
As a result of the Conservative initiative: 'New Roads by New Means' the M6 Toll and the Western Orbital Motorway were both put forward as toll roads and a competitive tender for the road attracted three bidders. A secret concession agreement was signed with Midland Expressway Limited (MEL) who took the scheme forward to Public Inquiry in 1994-1995. John Prescott gave permission for the road in 1997. There was then a legal challenge by the Alliance Against the BNRR as well as direct action protests at various locations along the proposed route of the road.
The legal challenge was pulled out of because of spiralling costs and the last of the protest camps were forcibly cleared in 1999 allowing construction of the road to commence.
Politics
The decisions to grant the concession for the road was taken by Conservative
Ministers. A leaked copy of the traffic assessment of the relative bids does
not favour MEL. Shortly afterwards Lord Parkinson, one of the Ministers of Transport
at the time, became an Executive Director of Midland Expressway, a post he held
until a few months before the Labour victory in 1997.
Many local Labour MPs opposed the road, including Mike O'Brien, now a Government Minister. In 1993 in Mike O' Brien's constituency Frank Dobson, Labour's transport spokesperson, put out a press release saying Labour would not build the road, a position they did not revoke right up to the 1997 election. In a previous by-election their candidate for Tamworth used this opposition to BNRR to help gain the seat. They gave permission for the road's construction just three months after the election at the same time as rejecting the Salisbury Bypass. It is the first known act of the Labour Government which directly contradicted something they had previously said while in opposition.
The challenge in the High Court was on the basis that the cost of rejecting the road influenced the Secretary of State's decision. Although some of the Concession Agreement was made public as a result of the legal action a large amount is still secret.
Opposition
There was only muted public
opposition in 1988 because local people did not believe they could fight the
proposals. However, when the toll road came forward there was a much more concerted
campaign, reflecting the much higher national profile of road building and the
damage new roads inflict upon our environment, economy and quality of life.
An informal coalition, initially set up by West Midlands Friends of the Earth,
became the Alliance Against the BNRR. It bought together environmental groups
and residents along the whole length of the route. There were over 30 different
organisations involved in the Alliance.
The Alliance successfully lobbied councils and MPs to oppose the route. It managed to persuade the Labour Party while in opposition to say 'it would not build the BNRR.' The official consultation process drew over 10, 000 letters of objection and the resulting public inquiry was the longest ever undertaken into a road scheme in the UK. The Alliance co-ordinated evidence against the BNRR at the Inquiry, at which a number of national and international transport specialists provided evidence along with parish councils, local authorities and campaign groups. Many individuals were able to have their say on this important issue and, due to the Alliance's co-ordination were able to make their case.
The Alliance challenged the decision to build the road and the secrecy of the concession agreement in the courts. However MEL and the government were able to maintain the commercial confidentiality of key sections of the concession agreement so that eventually the costs to take the case further became too high for the campaigners.
However, during the court action the Government changed their policy to ensure all future concession agreements would be open to public scrutiny. Ironically, this did not apply to the BNNR/MEL concession.
At the same time road protesters set up a number of camps at Green Wood, Moneymore Hall, Boundary Cottage and Canwell Coppice to take direct action against the building of the road. The camps were in place for over a year between December 1997 and January 1999. Once all of the camps had been removed the Highways Agency let contractors to destroy the local landscape and hand over the cleared route for construction of the road to commence.
At the same time MEL were organising the financing of the scheme in conjunction with Bank of America and Abbey National treasury Services. Construction of the road started in January 2001. The construction process was scheduled to take three years and the road is expected to open in January 2004.
Recently, both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association have registered their anger at the tolling regime proposed by MEL and a number of their members have indicated that they may boycott the road, although they did not say this at the Public Inquiry.
Environmental
Impacts
The M6 Toll goes through 27 miles of Green Belt and damages two Sites
of Special Scientific Interest, Blythe Valley and Chasewater, the latter severely.
It cuts through the middle of the Forest of Mercia. It affects a large number
of communities between Cannock and Coleshill. It severs a number of local roads
and threatened to sever the Lichfield and Hatherton canals, stopping their restoration.
A public campaign has paid for infrastructure to stop this happening.
The mitigation measures, while welcome, are not an alternative to open land.
Impacts on People
The building of the M6 Toll has resulted in the destruction of 41 homes, 23
of which were on Hednesford Road, Brownhills West. During the construction process
numerous people have been affected by noise, dust, and large vehicles using
inappropriate roads. Construction continued during the Foot and Mouth outbreak
despite concerns from local farmers about the effects of vehicles and workers
crossing fields and country lanes. There have been numerous complaints from
local people about the behaviour of construction workers and their insensitivity
to people's concerns. There has also been a poor response from MEL and national
politicians to these concerns.
There have been instances of landscaping and tree planting schemes not being completed and there are places where promised earth mounds and/or fences have not been installed. There will be further impacts when the road opens, including traffic noise, light pollution (both from the road and the toll booths) and increased air pollution. There will also be increased traffic flows on many roads in the vicinity of the M6 Toll and a greater threat from activities associated with future changes in land use in the Green Belt. There may be implications for the value of properties along with new forms of visual intrusion from the traffic on the road.
The Alliance will be tracking these issues and helping to pursue compensation claims once the road has been operating for a year.
Traffic
The M6 Toll has a limited
impact on traffic in the West Midlands conurbation according to the Highways
Agency traffic figures put to the Public Inquiry. While it reduces traffic on
roads immediately parallel to it, it increases traffic on roads accessing it,
including the congested M42 and M6 routes at either end. The impact on the M6
through Birmingham is limited with approximately 160,000 vehicles a day using
the route with or without the M6 Toll. The transfer to the toll route (which
is less than the transfer from the A5/A38/A446 route) is whittled away to a
difference of between and 1% and 4% on the M6 through the conurbation. Even
this may be optimistic given the huge potential for newly generated traffic
(Ikea at Jn 9, for example, is a location which attracts people currently put
off by congestion.).
Time gained on the M6 Toll may be lost on other parts of the motorway network because the toll road tends to concentrate more traffic onto other sections of the M6 and the M42. The increase in capacity close to the urban area is likely to lead to extra traffic generation, not as much on the M6 Toll, owing to toll constraints, but certainly on the parallel free network.
Development
The economic impact of the road is to make potential development sites in the
Green Belt more attractive to speculative developers and conversely makes sites
in many urban areas less attractive. Peddimore and Bassetts Pole are large green
field sites already identified by Birmingham Council (currently subject to the
Unitary Development Process in which the inspector indicated that the Birmingham
City Council case is not very strong). Other areas likely to be impacted are
Burntwood, Chasetown and Cheslyn Hay. While there are industrial sites in these
ex-mining communities where development would have regeneration benefits there
are also narrow belts of Green Belt which include a number of important SSSIs,
mainly a patchwork of heathland which used to be attached to Cannock Chase.
Recently, GVA Grimley, Locate West Midlands and Instaffs produced a brochure: 'Business in the Fast Lane' which claimed that "it is not often that 1,000 acres of prime development land are opened up in an established area with easy access to a motorway grade road." Their review identified 27 sites with many of "within 10 minutes drive time of a motorway junction". Only two included reference to rail access. The majority are greenfield opportunities which by their very nature would act as traffic generators adding even more traffic to the already overburdened local road network.
Economics
The public version of the BNRR was subject to a cost benefit analysis (COBA),
however the Highways Agency and MEL refused to do one for the toll road, claiming
it was unnecessary. The Inquiry Inspector did not require one, claiming it wouldn't
be built by a private company if it wasn't economic. This confuses the company's
profits with the public interest. WWF funded a COBA undertaken by MTRU, a well
known consultancy following Government procedure. It suggested that when the
delays caused by the road and the cost of the toll were taken into account the
result would be negative rising to £30 million: in other words, the money
put into the toll booth would exceed the value of the time saved. There has
still been no official COBA of the scheme.
Cost
The scheme is classed in all official road programmers as 'Privately Funded'
as if it was costing the taxpayer nothing. In fact we know some parts of the
scheme are being publicly funded. For example, the section of road linking the
M6 in Warwickshire to the M42/M6 Toll merge, which is part of the scheme and
is needed to allow traffic to get to the M6 Toll was paid for by the Government
at a cost of approximately £20 million. This is not registered anywhere
in any road programme and only came to light as a result of a Parliamentary
question.
Proposals for a link road between the M6 Toll and the M54 which would benefit the toll company are now being promoted and would be paid for by the Government, even though MEL clearly benefit from the project.
The Toll Regime
As a result of the Concession Agreement the toll rate is completely at the discretion
of MEL. This was challenged by the Alliance and others at the public inquiry.
The only caveat is that MEL can only change the rates on a six monthly basis.
Unlike bridges and tunnels, where there is no alternative, it was assumed that
free competition from the M6, the A5/A38/A446 and A50 would ensure the toll
operator couldn't charge too much and would "act in the public interest."
This did not take account of the fact that as the road begins to become congested
with approximately 80,000 vehicles per day, MEL's commercial interests will
be served by raising the toll and thereby discouraging traffic. This is something
they are likely to do selectively, discouraging lorries (owing to road damage,
safety concerns, speed) and concentrating on cars. Unfortunately, lorries are
precisely the vehicles that should be on the motorway network.
Although objectors persuaded the Inspector of their arguments on this matter, they were rejected by the Secretary of State, who said MEL were unlikely to behave in this manner and that the issue had not been raised by freight interests. MEL said they would charge £2.50 for cars at the Inquiry and £5.00 for lorries. In the event they have announced £3 by day and £2 by night toll charges for cars and lorry charges of £11 and £10 respectively. The Freight operators who didn't raise the issue at the Inquiry are now complaining that intervention from the Government is not possible.
There is to be a discount of £1 on all charges for the first 10 million vehicles to use the road. MEL's analysis of toll rates showed a great deal of uncertainty about reaction to their tolls, with half the potential cars and lorries put off the motorway by the predicted levels of the toll. However, in terms of lorries, this level of toll led to very few lorries using the road. What is certain is that the reaction to the toll is central to the robustness of MEL's figures, both in terms of traffic benefit and in terms of their own profits. Toll roads like the Dulles Greenway struggled in the early years to reach anywhere near predictions and led to early refinancing.
It is important that the Government does not bail out a company who took the risk themselves when we were promised it wouldn't cost us anything. The toll rates will inevitably be compared with tolling and other charging schemes. It is important to note that unlike other schemes the money will go into shareholders' pockets, not improving alternative public transport. The rates of toll will reflect MEL's goals, not the public interest. They are, for example, much higher than any motorway toll figures ever considered by Government.
The tolls only cover the motorway itself so do not take into account the impact on the road network and do not relate to existing infrastructure but to a new road which itself will encourage a growth in traffic. Lastly, it is important to understand that if planning is sought for industrial sites along the route, as happened on the M42, there is no guarantee lorries will actually use the toll road: permission may be given on the understanding that lorries will use the toll road while in fact they will use local roads.
Road User Charging
This topic is rising up the
political agenda and the opening of the M6 Toll will once again put the issue
centre stage. However, it would be unwise to compare the two too closely. The
M6 Toll is unique in that it will be the only toll-boothed motorway in the UK
ever to be built. Unlike river crossings such as the Severn Bridge or the Tyne
Tunnel there are free alternatives in the same corridor: the current M6, the
A446/A38/A5 or the A50 link road. The tolls, under the control of MEL, will
not be reinvested into alternatives to car travel but merely swell the profits
of shareholders.
While congestion charging in London has broken the log jam in taking this debate forward, the opening of the M6 toll is likely to confuse the issue. The charges will be unpopular and will not restrain congestion in the way the London charge has. Nor will charging address the core issues of why car travel is growing. It's regressive nature creates a two tier road system.
Unlike the M6 Toll proposals, road user charging can deliver traffic reduction, investment in, promotion of and increased use of public transport. Cordon systems, such as London, can give way to variable systems without compromising other goals, such as protecting the interests of rural areas or promoting a level playing field for HGV charging across Europe. Such a system could vary by time of day, the quality of the public transport offer and the provision of walking and cycling facilities.
Who's
involved?
The concession is held by Midland Expressway Limited which is owned by
Macquarie Bank of Australia in conjunction with Autostrada of Italy with Macquarie
holding an option to take 100% control. Interestingly, Macquarie have an investment
approaching 25% in Birmingham International Airport, which is adjacent to the
route of the toll road.
The road has been financed by the Bank of America and Abbey National Treasury Services, who also financed the highly controversial Isle of Skye bridge. The road has been built by a consortium known as CAMBBA which brought together Carrilion, Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and Amec.
Contacts:
Alliance Against the BNRR : Andrew Ross
Friends of the Earth : Chris Crean
Technical Advice : Gerald Kells