It appears that the hugely successful M6 Toll Road is so far off the floor after all!

The new Toll Motorway has already had teething problems such as the Bridgetown Railway Bridge which has already been propped up.

But the problems are no where near as big as the one at the moment.

Part of the section near Sutton Coldfield collapsed due to a series of caves underneath the motorway.

Josh Westwood
KON

E newspaper Chairmans' comment as I don't want KON to end up in court!

Josh has done some valuable research work on this story. He was not misguided in his coverage of "caves under the road" as that was a local theory with the Midlands having seen many houses collapse underground for those reasons- usually due to old mine shafts giving way.

Having spoken to one of the contractors over the weekend, the Sutton Coldfield section was closed because different contractors were responsible for constructing the various sections of the motorway.

The joining sections at Sutton Coldfield were misaligned meaning that in severe rain conditions vehicles were aqua-plaining . The Toll road was closed to ensure that water drained away from the surface of the road at the join of the two sections in question.

That has now been achieved.

Martin Tibbetts
Sunday, 01 February 2004