Highways England announces £50 million investment in M6 Knutsford roundabout

Highways England announces £50 million investment in M6 Knutsford roundabout

Highways England is planning a major, £50 million improvement of the roundabout at junction 19 of the M6 motorway near Knutsford – with the backing of drivers.

The ‘Option A’ idea, to provide a new bridge across the middle of the roundabout where the motorway meets the A556, received the backing of three quarters of drivers, Cheshire East and Tabley councils and other local people responding to last summer’s month-long consultation. Today it was unveiled as the option Highways England is taking forward in its preferred route announcement (PRA) for the improvements.

Highways England project manager Irene Ofei said: “We are delighted to announce the scheme we are taking forward is the one which was the overwhelming choice of people taking part in last year’s consultation. We feel this option will deliver most and lasting benefits in terms of improving journey reliability and safety and increasing capacity. The new link roads across the middle of the roundabout will take a lot of traffic away from other parts of the roundabout, reducing congestion for everyone.”

While further work to refine the idea will now take place, construction work could start as soon as March 2019 but by March 2020 at the latest.

The improvements will involve significant construction in the middle of the roundabout over the existing M6 motorway carriageways. This will provide dedicated link roads between the northbound M6 and the new northbound A556 Knutsford to Bowdon dual carriageway as well as the southbound M6 onto the southbound, local, A556 road towards Northwich.

The improvements also include:

• Wider lanes on the existing roundabout to increase capacity, including the bridges over the M6.
• New traffic lights on the roundabout and its approach roads.
• New traffic lights for the Tabley Hill Lane/Pickmere Lane junction.
• Improvements to local access for walkers, cyclists and horse riders using the junction.

The reports setting out the preferred route announcement and detailing the responses to last summer’s consultation can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/m6-junction-19-improvement-scheme-options.

Money for remodelling the roundabout at one of the region’s busiest road junctions is being provided as part of the Government’s £15 billion Road Investment Strategy (RIS), and will help boost the Northern Powerhouse agenda of improving transport connectivity and reliability to help the economy of the North.