M6 to be closed overnight for two weeks

From tomorrow drivers will be forced to find alternative routes after a fresh round of roadworks start as part of a £120 million scheme.

Overnight closures will run for 15 consecutive nights on the M6 southbound between junction 13 for Stafford and junction 10a for Wolverhampton.

The Smart Motorways project aims to extend the existing use of the hard shoulder as an extra lane to reduce congestion on the M6 and adjoining routes.

Closures are scheduled to take place between 10pm and 6am from tomorrow to Thursday, and on Friday between 10pm and 8am.

At the weekend the closures will be in place on Saturdays from 10pm to 10am and on Sundays from 10pm to 5.30am. The closures will be the same next week and include Monday night.

And the agency advised more road closures are on the way in October.

Highways Agency bosses said the closures to parts of the motorway and the slip roads was to enable work on updating overhead gantries.

They claimed the scheme had been designed to minimise disruption and say the overall projects aims to reduce congestion and provide 'more reliable journey times' for motorists.

Highways Agency project manager David Cooke said work on the scheme was already 'progressing well'. "We have carried out much of the necessary work within the hard shoulder and verges of the motorway," he said. "We are now ready to install equipment on overhead gantries and to do this safely and quickly we need to close carriageways overnight.We are also reconstructing and strengthening some of the carriageway. At junction 12 we will need to close slip roads over two weekends."

During October there will be a further 12 full closures, either southbound or northbound, to install overhead signs. There will be various rotating slip road closures at junction 12 every weekend in September and October, with an extended motorway closure of lane one from 10am to 12noon on Sundays.

Once completed in 2015, the £102m smart motorway scheme with enable officials to use variable speed limits and use hard shoulder as a permanent additional running lane.

Visit www.highways.gov.uk/roads/road-projects for full details on the scheme.

Meanwhile, motorists are also warned of a series of overnight road closures on the A5 in and around Cannock from tomorrow.

The A5 Churchbridge island will be closed in both directions until October 12 between 8pm and 6.15am. The closure will be removed at weekends.

The work is part of a £2.9m six-month improvement project which began in July.

Work will also take place on the A5 Wall island which will also be closed in both directions from tomorrow until September 12 between 8pm and 6am.