New lanes open on M6 Warrington to Wigan as part of motorway upgrade

Work to open an extra lane in each carriageway of the M6 between Warrington and Wigan began at the weekend – helping to improve journey times and reliability for the tens of thousands of drivers who use the route daily.

At 6am on Saturday (12 October), National Highways lifted the traffic cones and barriers along the southbound M6 between junction 22 at Winwick and junction 21a at Croft.

National Highways say that by the end of this week, there’ll be an extra lane open to drivers in both the northbound and southbound carriageways along all ten miles of the M6 between junction 21a at Croft interchange with the M62 and junction 26 at Orrell interchange with the M58.

This latest programme of work marks the beginning of the end of the £260 million motorway upgrade which started in March 2021.

The newly-upgraded Warrington to Wigan section will run at a maximum of 50mph – with other interim safety measures in place – until work to calibrate technology, including stopped vehicle detection, is completed.

The upgrade is then expected to fully open, with the 70mph maximum national speed limit restored, by next spring.

Alongside adding an extra lane in both the northbound and southbound carriageways the upgrade has involved providing extra technology and safety enhancements, including stopped vehicle detection.

Stopped vehicle detection uses radar technology to alert National Highways’ control centre operators who can then close lanes with a Red X signal, display speed limits and deploy traffic officers.

The project was extended in 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.

Temporary additional CCTV from the roadworks and a free recovery service will remain in place alongside the new permanent systems during the technology commissioning period.

Drivers will also be able to use any of the 22 new emergency areas if they need to stop in an emergency.

Following Saturday’s opening, all the other the newly-upgraded stretches of motorway were or will be opened to drivers – after further 9pm to 6am overnight carriageway closures to remove cones and barriers – in the following sequence:

• Tomorrow (Tuesday 15 October) southbound M6 between junction 23 at Haydock to junction 22 at Winwick
• Wednesday (16 October) – southbound M6 from junction 26 at Orrell to junction 23 at Haydock
• Thursday (17 October) – northbound 21a at Croft to junction 22 at Winwick

Further details on the M6 upgrade are available here.