National Highways has fully opened a new all lane running scheme (ALR) that narrowly escaped the cancellation of the smart motorway programme last year.
The £260m M6 junction 21a to 26 motorway upgrade moved to operation at 70mph on Thursday (19 December), lifting a 50mph speed limit that had been in place since the middle of October, when an extra lane in each carriageway was opened to drivers for the first time.
The move followed work to calibrate technology, including stopped vehicle detection (SVD).
The upgraded stretch of motorway runs for 10 miles between the interchanges with the M62 at Junction 21a at Croft and the M58 at Junction 26 for Orrell.
In April last year, the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that 11 ALR schemes that had been ‘paused’ and three earmarked for construction during RIS 3 (2025 to 2030) would be cancelled.
The M6 scheme was one of two schemes to carry on, on the grounds that they were more than three-quarters complete.
Image credit: Costain
It was extended last December to add an extra 12 emergency areas – with 22 provided in all – as well as resurfacing all lanes along most of the upgraded route. A low-noise road surface was used on some sections.
The central reservation barrier has also been upgraded along the 10-mile stretch from steel to concrete, which National Highways says is stronger than steel, and ‘virtually maintenance-free’.
Costain, as part of the SMP Alliance, has been the on-site partner for the upgrade.
