Clearing traffic from our roads
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: John Prescott was quite correct when he said, in 1993, that the Birmingham Northern Relief Road would not relieve M6 congestion. In fact, forecasts provided by the erstwhile DoT at the BNRR public inquiry showed this clearly; for once the arithmetic is quite simple.
Only about 30 per cent of the vehicles using the West Midlands stretch of the M6 are travelling from one end to the other, the remainder having at least one end of their trip within the conurbation. Of this through traffic, only about half will use the BNRR, the rest will remain on the M6 to avoid paying the toll. The void created by the removal of only 15 per cent of the flow will quickly be filled by generated and diverted traffic, thus leaving conditions on the M6 virtually unchanged.
The scheme is incorrectly named; in reality it is the West Midlands Bypass. It would be far more effective - and far less damaging to the environment - to charge a reasonable toll to enter the existing motorway network and thus price off some of the local trips, which could use other roads or be made by alternative modes of transport.
Sad to say, such considerations do not appear to have counted for much with the Government ("Prescott accused over road schemes", 29 July). Whatever Baroness Hayman says, it is clear that the pounds 30m compensation bill was the deciding factor. What then was the justification for the lengthy public inquiry?
PHILIP JONES
Kinver, Staffordshire
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