Britain’s only toll road, the motorway M6 Toll, is up for sale by its owners, a consortium of banks that hope to recover some of the €2.45 billion of debt.
The 27 owners of M6 Toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the 43km pay-as-you-go toll road from infrastructure group2378 Macquarie in December 2013 after a debt restructuring.
Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of Birmingham for the lenders. But MEL reported a loss of nearly €37 million in 2014, down from around €42 million a year before.
MEL won a public-private partnership competition in 1991 to privately build the road and operate it under a 53-year concession, lasting to 2054. MEL was to finance construction and recoup its costs by setting and collecting tolls. At the end of the concession period the infrastructure will revert to the government. Toll rates are set at the discretion, with no cap on the rates charged.
MEL contracted road construction to the CAMBBA consortium consisting of major contractors Carillion, Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and AMEC. Site clearance started in 2000 and the road opened in December 2003. M6 Toll has two toll plazas, Great Wyrley Toll Plaza for northbound vehicles and Weeford Toll Plaza for southbound traffic.
However, a report by the UK newspaper Financial Times this month said the road failed to meet its initial volume expectations. But vehicle numbers have increased in the past several years as the UK’s economy improves. About 17.4 million vehicles used the M6 toll road in 2015, a 12.6% increase in traffic from the year before. The compound annual growth rate in traffic over the past four years has been 10.1%.
World Highways understands that daily traffic levels are now back up to the peak level in 2006 of 48,000 customers, one of the reasons that sale is going ahead. Local Birmingham City media reported that around 200,000 vehicles a day pass through the nearby untolled M6 motorway around the city.
There have been repeated calls by consumer groups and political parties to scrap the toll deal and take the road into public ownership. UK transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin recently said he would look into how the M6 Toll can be used in the event of major traffic incidents on the untolled M6.
Last October, MEL rewarded its 180 millionth customer with free travel on the motorway for a year. MEL said it would reward every subsequent 10 millionth customer with a year’s free passage.
In June last year, Andy Pearson took over as chief executive of MEL after the retirement of Tom Fanning. Pearson holds a chemical engineering degree from Strathclyde University and an MBA from Warwick University in the UK.
Pearson had been working with private investors looking at manufacturing opportunities in China. He previously was with Babcock International in Brazil and the Middle East and was chief executive of Babcock’s UK rail construction business. Before that, he was 20 years in engineering and manufacturing groups including SCA, Courtaulds and Unilever.
The 27 owners of M6 Toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the 43km pay-as-you-go toll road from infrastructure group
Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of Birmingham for the lenders. But MEL reported a loss of nearly €37 million in 2014, down from around €42 million a year before.
MEL won a public-private partnership competition in 1991 to privately build the road and operate it under a 53-year concession, lasting to 2054. MEL was to finance construction and recoup its costs by setting and collecting tolls. At the end of the concession period the infrastructure will revert to the government. Toll rates are set at the discretion, with no cap on the rates charged.
MEL contracted road construction to the CAMBBA consortium consisting of major contractors Carillion, Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and AMEC. Site clearance started in 2000 and the road opened in December 2003. M6 Toll has two toll plazas, Great Wyrley Toll Plaza for northbound vehicles and Weeford Toll Plaza for southbound traffic.
However, a report by the UK newspaper Financial Times this month said the road failed to meet its initial volume expectations. But vehicle numbers have increased in the past several years as the UK’s economy improves. About 17.4 million vehicles used the M6 toll road in 2015, a 12.6% increase in traffic from the year before. The compound annual growth rate in traffic over the past four years has been 10.1%.
World Highways understands that daily traffic levels are now back up to the peak level in 2006 of 48,000 customers, one of the reasons that sale is going ahead. Local Birmingham City media reported that around 200,000 vehicles a day pass through the nearby untolled M6 motorway around the city.
There have been repeated calls by consumer groups and political parties to scrap the toll deal and take the road into public ownership. UK transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin recently said he would look into how the M6 Toll can be used in the event of major traffic incidents on the untolled M6.
Last October, MEL rewarded its 180 millionth customer with free travel on the motorway for a year. MEL said it would reward every subsequent 10 millionth customer with a year’s free passage.
In June last year, Andy Pearson took over as chief executive of MEL after the retirement of Tom Fanning. Pearson holds a chemical engineering degree from Strathclyde University and an MBA from Warwick University in the UK.
Pearson had been working with private investors looking at manufacturing opportunities in China. He previously was with Babcock International in Brazil and the Middle East and was chief executive of Babcock’s UK rail construction business. Before that, he was 20 years in engineering and manufacturing groups including SCA, Courtaulds and Unilever.
