Help us bring relief to M6
Namely the congestion of the M6 motorway in the Midlands corridor from Junction 5 up to Junction 11. The cost to business must be huge, let alone the stress caused to the public.
It was decided that a relief road was needed – to bypass the bottle neck, and so the Birmingham Northern Relief Road was born.
However, because the Government would not fund it, it was created as the first toll motorway. So despite being a much needed solution, it is ineffective because it remains little used.
Even the signs on the approach saying "M6 Toll flowing freely" do not entice motorists to pay the £4.70 toll (commercial vehicles pay considerably more – or not, as is more often the case).
The only way to relive the congestion on the M6 and make the BNRR a true relief road is to nationalise it and absorb it into the normal motorway network. To this end, I have a petition on the Government's e-petitions website calling for the nationalisation of the M6 Toll road.
If you're happy to sit in traffic and burn fuel, please disregard this letter. But if you'd like to see congestion eased and the M6 used for what it was intended, please sign the petition and make everyone you know aware of it.
A lot of people suffered during the building of this road. Let it be for something worthwhile and not the white elephant that it is today.
Harry Harrison, Birmingham.
A congested M6 – Harry Harrison says the motorway is still busy because the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, now the M6 Toll, is too expensive to tempt drivers to use it instead.
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