Manor Way traffic: Roadworks on A456 spell delays for motorists through Halesowen and Stourbridge
A major dual carriageway linking to the motorway will be closed overnight for a week, leaving hundreds of drivers facing disruption.
Manor Way in Halesowen will be shut in both directions from 8pm tonight due to the roundabout at Junction 3 of the M5 being closed for roadworks.
Nightly closures will then be in place for the rest of the week until Sunday – meaning motorists will have to take long detours.
The road, which connects Halesowen and Stourbridge, is used by thousands of drivers every day, heading to and coming from the motorway.
Traffic regularly backs up during busy periods and the closures are likely to cause significant disruption during the evenings.
Closures will be in place from the Grange roundabout and motorists will be taken on a diversion up Grange Road, Bromsgrove Road, Mucklow Hill, Halesowen Road and Hagley Road West.
It will re-open at 6am each day in time for morning rush hour.
Work is being carried out on the M5 this week, meaning the Manor Way roundabout leading onto the motorway, has been closed to traffic. Highways bosses have decided a long stretch of Manor Way should also be closed to stop vehicles getting to the island.
The closures on Manor Way come ahead of major roadworks scheme on the M5 which looks set to bring misery for motorists for the next two years.
Halesowen councillor David Vickers said he expected traffic problems in the area. He said: "It is certainly going to cause a lot of disruption in the area but it will be overnight and if the work is necessary I suppose it has got to be done.
"It is one of those roads which carries a tremendous amount of traffic but I don't know what else we can do.
"People have got to be patient, that's the only thing we can say to them."
The work on the M5 is a pre-cursor to a huge scheme further up the motorway at the Oldbury viaduct, which will eventually see the speed limit reduced to 30mph.
The stretch between Junction 1 for West Bromwich and Junction 2 for Oldbury will be affected, with traffic to be cut to two lanes in both directions.
Work is expected to start before the end of the month and last until the end of 2018.
