M6 traffic slowed by new works

Narrow lanes and 50mph speed restrictions will stretch for eight miles on one of the busiest sections of the M6 from Friday as roadworks are extended.

Restrictions will be introduced along a two mile stretch between Junctions 8 and 9 between Wednesbury and Great Barr in both northbound and southbound directions for an indefinite period as part of the £96 million scheme to allow drivers to use the hard shoulder in rush hour.

The work, in addition to ongoing restrictions further up the motorway between Junctions 10 and 10a, was meant to get under way at the weekend but was delayed by the weather. Workmen will be strengthening the road surface of the hard shoulder and erecting gantries.

The scheme will also see the closure of the southbound sliproad at Junction 8 where the M6 meets the M5 overnight between Friday and Tuesday.

Closures will be in place between 10pm and 5.30am each night, weather permitting.

The plan, which it is hoped will eventually ease rush hour bottlenecks, is the second phase of a project which saw the same done between junctions 4 and 5 near to Birmingham Airport and the NEC. That branch of the active traffic management system opened in December.

Highways Agency bosses today said the scheme between junction 10A for the M54 and Junction 8 at Great Barr, where the M6 joins the M5, will be in use by March 2011.

Senior project manager Paul Unwin said: "This is probably the second busiest motorway in the country after the M25.

"We have to get rid of the congestion for economic reasons as much as anything else.

The M6 is only the second motorway in the country to adopt the system.