At last, some good news for Birmingham’s drivers
Birmingham’s exasperated motorists have finally been given some welcome news.
Over-running road repairs on the main route into and out of the city to the M6 have finally been completed.
It’s been a tough summer for drivers, with ongoing roadworks on the M5 and M6 being compounded by a series of weekend closures to the A38 Aston Expressway.
The programme of closures to the Expressway was due to have ended over the Bank Holiday weekend but had to be extended by a final weekend, with the last bit of work being concluded today (Monday).
Highways England said: “We have been working really hard to carry out this work as quickly as we can. Last weekend (Bank Holiday) we completed all planned waterproofing work but also took advantage of the good weather to install additional waterproofing to what was planned.
“We had originally planned to complete the work over seven consecutive weekends. Over the first five weekends, we made good progress repairing the concrete and were able to lift the planned full weekend closure for August 18 to 21. This helped to ease travel as there were a number of key sporting events taking place in and around the city including the day / night test match at Edgbaston, Grand Prix Athletics at Alexander Stadium and Aston Villa vs Norwich City at Villa Park.”
The agency said it recognised there was a never a good time to carry out such significant roadworks at such a critical point on the network but it had planned the closures to take place during the summer holidays when the roads are quieter and there is less traffic.
It said its intention had always been to complete the main work by today (Monday), before the majority of schools and colleges returned for the new term.
Some residual work will be completed during September but this be done overnight to minimise any disruption. There work is likely to result in some overnight lane closures to the Expressway.
However, the route will remain open throughout.
The major roadworks to the M5 between Junctions 2 (Oldbury) and 1 (West Bromwich) are ongoing and are scheduled to run until autumn 2018.
