The M56 motorway serves the Cheshire and Greater Manchester areas of England. It runs east to west from junction 4 of the M60 at Gatley, south of Manchester, to Dunkirk, approximately four miles (six kilometres) north of Chester. With a length of 33.3 miles (53.6 km), it connects North Wales and the Wirral peninsula with much of the rest of North West England, serves business and commuter traffic heading towards Manchester, particularly that from the wider Cheshire area, and provides the main road access to Manchester Airport from the national motorway network.[citation needed]
Although the main line of the motorway starts as a continuation of the A5103 Princess Parkway, the M56 begins on the Sharston Spur (also known as the Sharston Bypass)[according to whom?] where it leaves the M60 motorway at its junction 4 (clockwise exit and anticlockwise entry), adjacent to where the slip roads for the A34 to and from Manchester merge and diverge. After passing through junctions 1 and 2, the spur joins the main line at junction 3, increasing the motorway from two lanes to four in each direction.
The motorway then heads south to the west of Wythenshawe and Manchester Airport until it reaches junction 6, where it turns west before crossing into Cheshire at the River Bollin underbridge. It runs to the south of Hale before reaching junctions 7 and 8 which are part of the same interchange complex. Junction 8 was planned to be used by the proposed A556(M),[citation needed] but is now a single 270-degree loop between the southbound onslip from Bowdon roundabout to the westbound carriageway since the A556 towards the M6 motorway was upgraded to dual carriageway in 2017.[1] Traffic destined for the southbound M6 is directed to leave here (because there are no corresponding slip roads at its own junction) and so the junction can suffer from congestion.[according to whom?] Traffic levels on the mainline drop significantly as the motorway begins to assume a more traditional feel (three lanes and a hard shoulder per direction) whilst passing between Broomedge and High Legh.
Proposals existed for an extension into North Wales across the proposed Dee Barrage,[6][7] but these have never materialised.
The carriageway between junctions 4 and 6 was widened from the original dual three-lane configuration to dual four lanes during the 1990s as part of a nationwide motorway widening programme first proposed in the 1989 Roads to Prosperitywhite paper.[8] Junction 5 became a lane drop/gain[clarification needed] in both directions whereas junction 4 was reconfigured from a two-bridge roundabout to a signalised half-diamond[clarification needed] with a single bridge.[9]
Prior to 2008, the western end of the motorway terminated at a roundabout on the A5117. Work began in 2006 to grade-separate[clarification needed] this junction (and others) to allow free-flowing traffic between the motorway and the A550 at Deeside in North Wales, meaning that the mainline motorway no longer connects to the roundabout (it meets the extended A494 head-on 235 m (771 ft) east),[10] with the former eastbound carriageway retained as an on-slip.[11]
Construction
Wythenshawe to Gatley
Junctions 1 to 3. The route was fixed in April 1970.[12]
The contract for the western section was given in February 1973 to Peter Lind & Company for £1,245,700.[13] The eastern section contract, for around £5million, was given to Leonard Fairclough & Son in December 1971. The western section opened in May 1975, and the eastern section opened in March 1974.
Bowdon to Wythenshawe
Junctions 3a to 7, 7 miles (11 km). The route was fixed in early April 1968, to start at the end of 1968.[14] The contract was given at the end of July 1969, for £6,727,920 to Holland, Hannen & Cubitts.[15] It opened in January 1972.
[16] The tensioned central reservation barrier was made by Hill & Smith of Brierley Hill, then in Staffordshire.[17]
Preston Brook to Bowdon
Junctions 7 to 11, 11 miles (18 km). The draft route was announced December 1969 by Fred Mulley.[18] The inquiry was at Stockton Heath in July 1970.[19] The route was fixed in September 1971 by Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester.[20] In October 1972, contracts were given by Graham Page for £6.3million to Marples Ridgway for Preston Brook to Lymm, and to Robert McGregor & Sons for 5.2 miles (8.4 km) from Lymm to Bowdon for £4.65million.[21][22] The Croft Interchange (junction 9), with the M6, took up 180 acres (73 ha) of land.[23] Bowdon to Lymm (7 to 9) opened in December 1974.[24][25] Preston Brook to Lymm (9 to 11) was opened in July 1975 by Gordon Oakes; the section should have opened in the autumn of 1974, but was held up by bad weather.[26][27]
Hapsford to Preston Brook
Junctions 11 to 14, 8 miles (13 km). The 200-foot (61 m) bridge over the Chester–Warrington line, at Clifton, was built with PTFE joints and rolled into place in October 1968, known as incremental launch; it was built by Leonard Fairclough & Son, and designed by Husband & Company.[28]
The contract for the Hapsford to Preston Brook section was given on in November 1968, for £6.07million to Christiani-Shand, for 8miles to take 24months, and to be finished by December 1970, with main work started in December 1968.[29][30] Hapsford to Sutton Weaver (12 to 14) opened in February 1971 at 11am. The A557 to Preston Brook (11 to 12), 3 miles (4.8 km), opened in September 1971.[31]
Lea-by-Backford to Hapsford
Junctions 14 to 16. Plans were extended eastwards 6 miles (9.7 km) to Lea-by-Backford.[32] It had originally been planned as a trunk road corridor, that was belatedly upgraded to be built as a motorway, and the western section had only two lanes, much like a trunk road. The first two were contracts awarded in February 1978.[33] The last contract of the M56 from Stoak to Lea-by-Backford was awarded in September 1978. The contract for the southerly M531 to Hoole had not yet been given.[34][35]
The last section was started October 1978 by Alfred McAlpine. Percy Bilton Ltd of Stone, Staffordshire, built the Stoak Interchange itself. The M56 section opened in March 1981. The section from Stoak to Lea-by-Backford was two-lane only. The one-mile section of the two-lane M531 from the A5117 south to the M56 Stoak Interchange, was also opened on 18 March 1981, being built by Leonard Fairclough & Son. The M531 would become the M53, when it fully opened in 1982.[36][37] This £18million section was three months late, as construction of the Stoak Interchange had caused the hold up. Hapsford to east of Stoak cost £5.42million; the Stoak Interchange cost £4.84million; Stoak to Lea-by-Backford cost £4.32million. The M531 from Little Stanney to Stoak cost £3.46million.[38] The final section of the M531 was to open in 1982, from south of Stoak to the A56 near Chester, built by Monk. The M531 was originally planned to be extended to cross the Chester bypass, and terminate on the A41 at Upton-by-Chester, west of Hoole.[39] The M531 extension was planned to open mid-July 1982;[40] the remaining 2.5 miles (4.0 km) M531 section opened in July 1982, costing £14million.[41]
This contains the only section of the motorway paved with concrete, between junctions 15 and 16. Where it crosses the floodplain of the River Gowy, the carriageway sits on an embankment made of sandstone from a special-purpose quarry, which was constructed to replace existing peat deposits. The junction with the M53 at Stoak was also included in the construction contracts.[42] The M53 Mid Wirral Motorway was mostly built in 1971; it was originally planned to terminate on the A41 at Great Sutton, with a continuation of the Chester bypass to cross an east-west trunk dual carriageway, east of the present western terminus of the M56.[43]
At junction 7 in July 2009, the slip road letting traffic come in southbound along the M56 and turn onto the A556 southbound was closed while the bridge where it crosses the M56 (the Bowdon View Bridge), which for many years had had a weight restriction, was worked on; traffic intending to use it had to carry on to junction 10 and there turn round, or go through the centre of Altrincham; traffic for the nearby Tatton Park Flower Show, and the resulting closure to through traffic of the minor road along the southwest edge of Tatton Park from Ashley, Cheshire to Mere, Cheshire (which would otherwise have acted as a bypass for people living in the area), added to the resulting congestion.
In October and November 2010, the bridge was demolished and replaced.[45][46][47][48]
Thorley Lane bridge replacement
On Saturday 28 February and Sunday 1 March 2015, the new concrete girders of the Thorley Lane bridge a little north of Manchester Airport were put in. (The old bridge was demolished because it was found to be cracking.) The M56 was closed over that weekend for this. This caused much traffic congestion from M56 traffic diverted through Altrincham and Wythenshawe and along Styal Road and Kingsway, starting on Thursday 26 March because of work putting cones on the carriageway.
The government announced in August 2015[50] that the motorway between junctions 6 and 8 would be upgraded to a smart motorway as part of its Northern Powerhouse strategy; work began in 2020 and was completed in early 2023, originally anticipated for late 2021.[51] The project will with the exception of the slip roads at the airport junction give the motorway four running lanes on each carriageway between junctions 6 and 8, with an already existing standard motorway with 4 lanes from junction 6 to junction 3. As the work on the lanes is finished, the temporary speed limit was increased to 60mph in March 2023, with all lanes open. The 70mph national speed limit was to be reapplied when National Highways systems finished final commissioning work.
Junction 11a
There was also to be a new junction 11a at Runcorn between the existing junctions 11 and 12 to relieve heavy congestion on this stretch and serve the new Mersey Gateway bridge. However, this project was cancelled by Highways England in Spring 2020 as it didn't represent value for money.[52][53]
M56 corridor
"The M56 corridor" is a term used by estate agents and social geographers to describe what is considered to be a relatively affluent area of North West England, within easy reach of the M56. The area includes the cities of Manchester and Chester, and commuter towns and villages in rural Cheshire. It also includes Warrington and Runcorn, where the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are prominent.[54]
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