300 miles of roadworks in West Midlands
Holidaymakers seeking to travel around England next month will have to cope with more than 900 miles of roadworks on the motorway network, including nearly 300 miles in the West Midlands, it has emerged.
Holidaymakers seeking to travel around England next month will have to cope with more than 900 miles of roadworks on the motorway network, including nearly 300 miles in the West Midlands, it has emerged.
More than 300 miles of motorway will be undergoing maintenance in the North West and 288 miles of the network in the West Midlands will also be affected.
In total, some 340 roadworks schemes are planned on the motorway network in England, transport minister Chris Mole told MPs. In a Commons written reply to Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker, Mr Mole was unable to say how long the roadworks would last.
"The number of days on which traffic flow is likely to be affected varies considerably according to the type of road works being undertaken in each region," he said. The three regions worst hit by roadworks are the North West, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the North East.
In the North West, 303 miles of motorway will be affected as part of 190 schemes taking place next month. The West Midlands will have 52 roadworks schemes affecting 288 miles of the network. There are 69 projects planned in Yorkshire and the North East on 209 miles of roads.
Elsewhere, millions of motorists are facing three years of jams as 36 miles of roadworks get under way on the M25. Peak time traffic is expected to slow to a crawl across a stretch of the country from Buckinghamshire to Essex during the works which will run until just before the 2012 Olympic Games.
The majority of the northern half of the motorway, which is already the busiest road in Europe, will be affected, with the morning rush hour expected to double in length.
The AA warned drivers to "grit their teeth" while the RAC predicted "1,000 days of jams". However, both organisations insisted that the project, which will create up to 5,000 jobs, was necessary to avoid even worse congestion in the future.
The scale of the works will overshadow even the long-running M1 scheme, which was regarded as the most notorious jams black spot in Britain before its completion last year. Preliminary work on a 22 mile stretch of the motorway between junction 16, where it meets the M40 fro the West Midlands and junction 23, where it joins the A1(M), began about six weeks ago. Workmen will move into a further 14 mile section, stretching from the M11 junction to the Dartford Tunnel, later this month.
In the area where work has already begun, the morning rush hour has already doubled to more than three and a half hours, with traffic slowing below 30mph as early as 6.20am and remaining at that level until 10am, according to Trafficmaster.
Sadiq Khan, the transport minister, said that the scheme was "vital". "Everyone who uses these important stretches of motorway, will benefit from the massive investment," he said.
