An accident every four days on m6 Cheshire stretch
HARDLY a week goes by when the M.E.N. isn’t covering a serious accident on the Cheshire stretch of the M6.
In fact there have been more than 70 accidents between junctions 16 at Crewe and junction 20 at Lymm since January, according to the Highways Agency and the M6 Motorway Traffic twitter accounts.
This – a conservative estimate – equates to around one every four days.
In August, for example, an air ambulance landed on the southbound carriageway to airlift a man suffering ‘major trauma’ following a serious crash which led to a five-hour closure.
Earlier this month, police and paramedics rushed to a crash near junction 18 at Holmes Chapel, which left two people inured and a tanker leaking ‘chemical waste and water’ - sparking an evacuation and road closure.
These are just two among scores of incidents, many severe, to blight this section of road this year alone.
But what’s causing this level of disruption, delay and danger?
Most incidents seem to take place between junctions 16 at Crewe and 19 at Knutsford.
Since December 2015, it’s this stretch that’s being turned into a smart motorway – due for completion in March 2019 if all goes to plan. Eventually, it means the road will be monitored by speed cameras with limits fluctuating according to traffic levels. In the meantime, there are temporary narrow lanes and no hard shoulder, plus a 50mph speed limit.
Reporter Dianne Bourne, who commutes into Oldham every day from Cheshire, suffers daily frustration on the M6 between junction 18 at Holmes Chapel and 19 at Knutsford.
“For anyone who regularly uses this stretch of motorway it has become a depressingly familiar sight to watch red brake lights streaming down the route and sitting bumper-to-bumper in standing traffic – sometimes for an hour or more,” she says.
“The 11-mile or so stretch from Junction 17 at Sandbach to 18 at Knutsford used to take 10 minutes on a good journey, it’s now half an hour or more - and that’s if you’re lucky.”
Having used the route for 20 years, she says it’s the worst she’s seen it.
“I’ve never known the motorway to be closed so often because of major collisions - and when that happens the resulting traffic spills out on to all the rat runs around the area which are all getting potholed and damaged from over-use.
“Clearly the narrow lanes for the roadworks have had some kind of impact.”