Action Briefing Dec 2003-Jan 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

West Midlands News

Tolled You So . . . M6 Toll Opens

The BNRR, now known as the M6 Toll, is open for business. This closes a significant campaign for Friends of the Earth in the region. It could be argued that we were well and truly stuffed.

It could be argued that we were wrong to put such a lot of time and effort into a campaign which we were never going to “win.” Many would say we were far too purist and should have instead negotiated to affect the scheme on the ground.

However, there would be others who will say and continue to say that this is the wrong solution to the wrongly identified problem on the M6 within the conurbation. Indeed, if we had focussed the nation's attention and money on the real problems of sorting congestion at source and planning for cities for people then the road would have never made it off the drawing board.

The opening of the M6 Toll heralds a new dawn of pay-as-you-go motoring despite the its being the technology of the Dark Ages. The opening was used by Alistair Darling to highlight that while no other road will ever be built in a similar way road user charging is on the agenda and a green paper will be produced next year.

So, as we reflect on the loss of 27 miles of our green belt, further development battles in the corridor seem inevitable. We can observe the progress and see if the British public accept charging for road use. If they do then why are they complaining about petrol being so expensive? That motoring costs are going down and public transport fares are going up never reaches the tables of No.10 where the word ‘choice’ seems to be the mantra. We now have the ‘choice’ to pay to use the M6 Toll or stay on the M6. But what about the 25% of households who do not have access to a car across the region? In some wards of the conurbation that figure rises to 40%. What ‘choice’ do they have when the bus doesn’t show up?

The Alliance against the BNRR (and associated green belt developments) will continue to work and campaign for those people affected by the road. They will continue to be supported by West Midlands Friends of the Earth. Indeed, over the next year they will be addressing the issues of compensation with respect to life before and after the road was built. They will then be making their cases to the Government. They will also be tracking the detrunking of the parallel A5, A446 and A38 roads which will in effect become the free-to-use development corridor.

West Midlands Friends of the Earth will continue to track the performance of the road and that of the associated M6 through the conurbation. And we will be highlighting where the money is going and who is benefiting from the scheme. Many thanks to all of you who have supported this campaign over the years. In one sense our campaign was an immense victory: there will never be anything like the BNRR built in the UK again and while we may have borne the brunt we have saved countless others from such a fate.

Chris Crean