Final push for £43m M6 bridge project

Highways England’s work to construct a congestion-busting new bridge over the M6 at Knutsford in Cheshire is entering its final phase this month.

The £43 million bridge is being built through the roundabout at junction 19 of the M6 providing links to the motorway and A556 and improving traffic flow. And after successful operations this year to lift dozens of huge steel beams into place and pour the concrete foundations for the bridge deck, the improvement is set to open by the end of the summer.

Images from April's concrete pour

Highways England project manager Khalid El-Rayes said:

“We are now in the final stages of work. Over the next couple of months we’ll be focusing on surfacing, marking and installing traffic signals along the new bridge as well as delivering other improvements at the roundabout itself.

“We’d like to thank users of the M6, A556 and local people for their continued patience and support as we work to deliver this vital improvement at one of the busiest motorway junctions in the region.”

The junction itself will be closed over the next two weekends – from 9pm on Friday to 6am on Monday morning – starting from tomorrow night (Friday 4 June). There will be no access to or from the motorway at junction 19 during these weekends. Traffic on the M6 motorway will run as normal in both directions.  The A556 will also be closed from its junction with the northbound A5033 as well as junction 7 of the westbound M56. Diversions will be in place with more details and other project information available at:

https://highwaysengland.co.uk/our-work/north-west/m6-junction-19/

The concrete pour in April was the most recent milestone for the project when construction workers working from both sides of the motorway poured 1,000 cubic metres of concrete over the new bridge beams– enough to fill a million standard orange juice cartons. Highways England has released a new video showing April’s operation. 

Over the coming weeks, work will be taking place to complete the links between the bridge and A556 and M6 and install kerbing and lighting columns.