ROAD TOLLS

More than five years after New Labour came to power promising to reduce congestion and vowing to start a people-friendly transport revolution, the government is allowing drivers to be charged up to £11 every time they use a tiny stretch of West Midlands motorway called the M6 Expressway. The new three-lane toll road will follow an arc to the north-east of Birmingham, between Junctions 4 and 11 of the M6. It should relieve pressure on one of Britain's busiest bits of road.

But why should we motorists have to pay for this privilege? The argument goes that drivers must pay tolls to use the road because it cost £485million to build. But that cost is more than covered by the £40BILLION a year road users annually contribute to the Treasury by way of road fund licences, fuel duties, VAT on car sales and servicing plus countless other motoring taxes. In fact, of the £40billion that will be paid in road-user taxation to the government this year only about £10billion will be handed back by way of better, safer roads. The remaining £30billion is easy profit for the Chancellor.

Despite the fact that drivers in Britain already pay some of the highest road user taxes in the world, the government has confirmed that continental-style motorway tolls will be introduced here. It will be run by a private company called Midland Expressway Ltd which will lift £11 from the pockets of HGV truckers, £6 from van drivers and £3 from motorists and motorcyclists, who will all be forced to cough up in full at one of eight pay stations whether they travel the entire 27-mile stretch or not. Between 11pm and 6am, when the vast majority of road users are in bed, the fees on the near-empty road will reduce to £9 for trucks, £4 for vans, £1 cars and 50p motorcycles.

In a pathetic attempt to soften the blow of the imposition of fees, a £1 discount will be offered to the first 10million vehicles to use the road. Midland Expressways managing director, Tom Fanning, ignores the fact that drivers are already paying scores of billions a year in motoring taxes to use Britain's shambolic road network and insists his motorway toll fees are not a rip-off. "We've set the price at a level we believe offers good value to motorists, vans and HGV users," he argues. What he fails to acknowledge is that motorists and bikers who need to use the Expressway to travel to and from work every day will have to find an additional £30 a week or £1,500 a year - just to get to their shop, factory or office.

Paul Watters, head of roads and transport policy at the AA Motoring Trust is fuming. "The road was initially going to be paid for out of the public purse but it was dropped because it was 'too costly' despite the £40billion already paid each year by drivers in motoring taxes," he says. "Without tax reductions elsewhere this motorway must remain a one-off scheme." Freight Transport Association chief executive Richard Turner complains that truckers are going to be charged way over the top.

"We had hoped for a lorry rate of around £5 rather than £11. It's very unfortunate that we have had to rely on the private sector to deal with one of the country's congestion hotspots," he says. "The government has simply not recognised the problem nor acted to provide the extra road capacity to meet the needs of what is the world's fourth largest economy." The government has repeatedly proved that it will continue to fleece drivers whenever the opportunity arises. And with that in mind it's only a matter of time before New Labour introduces toll fees on more of Britain's motorways, if not the entire network.

Such a policy would drive countless lower-income drivers off the roads. But those who have no alternative but to remain behind the wheel will be paying considerably more to drive, thereby ensuring that the government will get even wealthier at the expense of car, van, truck and motorcycle users. This is not just a simple case of Britain catching up with its continental cousins and introducing the same motorway tolls that our neighbours have all been charging for years. Germany and Belgium, for example, don't have tolls. And France and Spain have excellent and largely uncongested networks on non-toll roads for those who don't want to pay.

True, the 60-mile motorway toll from Tours to Poitiers in France costs car drivers £6.60 and the 30-mile Barcelona to Manresa toll in Spain costs £3.50, but these figures have to be seen in context. At the end of the day the French and Spanish governments simply take considerably less from their citizens in motoring taxes. Just about every driver outside Britain pays less to buy and use his or her car. It would appear that New Labour hates Britain's 50 million car users - this includes car passengers, not just drivers, and fleeces motorists more than any other group.

Trouble is, in their pre-election manifestoes they conveniently forgot to mention this hatred for the drivers they cynically call mugs. We have now had more than five years of New Labour's brutal anti-car policies and are finally realising how much contempt the government has for motor cars and the cheated, beleaguered people who travel in them. (Source: Daily Mirror)

A Highways Agency report shows traffic on the M6 in the Midlands is almost back to the level reached before the parallel M6 Toll opened at the end of 2003, while traffic on stretches north and south of the toll road is much higher. Peak-hour traffic speeds are better on the original M6, but jams are still common, while at other times of day cars and lorries are sometimes moving more slowly than before.

The figures are a blow to arguments for the privately built and run £500 million toll road. Ministers have been warned that traffic on Britain's clogged roads is growing even faster. Compared with 2000, traffic would be 26% higher by the end of this decade and 40% more by 2025. However, an official analysis on the Department for Transport website showed these forecasts were later increased.

The problem is worse on trunk roads, which make up 13% of the road network but carry two thirds of all traffic. Traffic was now forecast to grow by between 33 and 40% by the end of the decade and by up to 70% by 2025. (Source: The Observer)

Motorists in England are facing congestion charges of up to £10 a day but Scotland will be exempt from the new laws. The Government Bill, backed by Transport Minister Douglas Alexander, will lead to a string of schemes modelled on London's £8 congestion charge but in cities where public transport is far less well developed. A spokesman for Mr Alexander said, "The UK Government was elected by the people of the UK to govern the UK. That is what Ministers are doing and will continue to do." (Source: Daily Mail, Nov/06)

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