General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Broady

Gaffer posted this in 2008

"From the Lancashire County Council archives. Report by W M Johnson MBE BEng CEng FICE FIHT titled Aintree, Slelmersdale, M6 motorway and the proposed extension to the M61.

In September 1966, the County Surveyor was authorised by the Committee to examine a proposed route for an eastward extension of what was then the about-to-be-constructed Skelmersdale-Upholland By Pass, through the southern fringes of the County Borough of Wigan, to the Manchester-Preston Motorway M61. A bridge had been provided when M61 was constructed to allow for the junction with such a road. As previously stated, this proposed road was, at the time, referred to as Route 225 though the route with that number in the 1949 Road Plan for Lancashire had, in fact, been a link between the centres of Wigan and Bolton.



The County Surveyor had clearly been doing some lobbying when, in July 1967, he reported that the Ministry had asked him, jointly with the Borough Engineer of Wigan, to carry out an appraisal of a possible new East-West Motorway to the South of Wigan. He had, of course, previously been authorised by the Committee to study a proposed route and so a lot of groundwork had already been done. The joint report had been completed in February 1967. Three possible alternative routes were suggested. Line A ran very close to the centre of Wigan, joining the Skelmersdale Regional Road at M6 to the end of the Westhoughton By Pass at Amberswood Common. This route was not really recommended because it involved considerable engineering and planning difficulties and would rapidly become overloaded. Line B linked the same two points using the trackbed of the Pemberton Loop [rail] Line which was expected to close. This route apparently caused unacceptable problems in Ince. Line C, towards which members were being steered, was similar but from the Pemberton Loop Line it ran eastwards alongside existing railways to Amberswood Common. All three routes required completely new links into Wigan. Line C provided the shortest route for through traffic but demanded a greater length of links in view of its relative remoteness from the centre of Wigan. The Committee unsurprisingly accepted Line C as the preferred option subject to further study.



Despite the Ministrys invitation, the proposal for an M6-M61 link had not been included in a government Green Paper on the countrys highway needs published in the spring of 1969 and the Committee resolved to campaign further. In September 1970, the Ministrys response to their pressure was received. It was a categorical No. The Ministry pointed out that there were three of what were described as East-West strategy routes in the Lancashire/Cheshire corridor. They were stated as M62, A580 and M56 and they clearly believed that was enough. Lancashire County Council were not happy!



Following discussions between the chief technical officers of Wigan County Borough, Bolton County Borough and Lancashire County Councils, early in 1971 a working party was set up. It must have seemed wise to them at the time when they invited a senior member of staff of the Regional Controllers Office of the Department of the Environment, which had become the responsible government department for transport, to attend their more important meetings. Their illustrated report was published late in 1972 under the misleading but hopeful title of Mid Lancashire Motorway. Their recommended route essentially followed Line C of the Wigan/Lancashire report of 1967. It was received by the County Councils Highways and Bridges Committee in December 1972 who were told that the estimate was now 19.75m which showed a good return (20.6%) on capital. The findings of the working party were summarised in an insert, clearly produced after the main body of the report. It contained the following paragraph:

The case made for the Mid-Lancashire Motorway is such that it is hoped the justification and need for it is now considered established. IN THIS RESPECT IT IS ENCOURAGING THAT ONLY RECENTLY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT HAVE INCLUDED THE ROUTE AS A PROPOSED TRUNK ROAD IN THEIR CONSULTATIVE PAPERS FOR THE NATIONAL PRIMARY TRUNK ROAD NETWORK FOR THE 1980s.

Unfortunately, the hopes emphasised by the authors by their capitalisation of the last sentence quoted above have not yet been realised.



In 1974, Greater Manchester County Council inherited the responsibility for major highways, other than trunk roads, in the area and continued the campaign. In May 1984 they published a report under the title M58-M61 Link Road (Route 225) in which they reviewed the scheme. Though supporting the route in general as a trunk route, they downgraded the proposal to a two-lane dual carriageway all-purpose trunk road. Incidentally, the report made little reference to the previous history of the scheme merely stating rather inaccurately, in paragraph 7.1, The M58-M61 Link Road, originally proposed by Lancashire County Council as the Mid-Lancashire Motorway, was included in the Consultative Papers for the National Primary Trunk Road Network in the early 1970s. The GMC took steps to protect the recommended route.



By 1989, The Greater Manchester County Council had been dissolved and the Department of the Environment had given way to the Department of Transport as the responsible government department. The chance of trunk road status appeared to be enhanced when the Department, employing Parkman Consulting Engineers, went out to public consultation on proposals for the M6 to M61 Link which was subtitled Wigan, Hindley and Westhoughton Bypass. They put forward three routes, all of which had a common western section from M6 to the point at which the route crossed the A573. This portion of the route, described as the Black Route, essentially followed the original proposals except for the length between A571 and B5238. The Departments consultation paper stated, confusingly, that this length of the protected route had been rejected in favour of the Black route because of its increased impact on industrial and residential propertyand increased cost. Surely that says the opposite of what was intended, or does it?



Three alternatives were proposed for the eastern section. The Brown and Red routes both started off on a common line but the Brown Route then went further north to a new junction on M61 mid way between Junctions 5 and 6. The eastbound carriageway of the Red route went under the M61 and both carriageways then headed south on each side of the M61 to join it and the A58 the present Junction 5 making it rather complex. The Blue route was a radically new proposal, going from the end of the Black route to the south of both Hindley and Westhoughton joining the A6 at Chequerbent and thence, along the A58 to Junction 5 with M61. A58 traffic was taken round the motorway junction to join the A58 to the east of Junction 5 to reduce congestion. There was no steer apparent in the paper but I suppose that, if true consultation is really intended, this must be the case though it may lead to some inaction.



In 1993 Parkmans, again working for the Department of Transport, published an Environmental Statement which gave just one route for the roadthe Blue route. This line was stated as having received most support from the public in the earlier consultation exercise. The adoption of this route, because of the location of its eastern termination, effectively ruled out motorway status. Indeed the non-technical summary of the Statement referred to the route as the A5225 Wigan, Hindley and Westhoughton Bypass. Its nice to see that, with the addition of the prefix 5 to satisfy the national zone-of-origin system of road numbering, the old Road Plan route number has survived for over fifty years even if the route is substantially different. A Public Inquiry took place between October 1994 and February 1995 and the Secretary of State accepted the Inspectors recommendation.



In 1996, however, the scheme was removed from the trunk road programme, the route was protected and the responsibility for the scheme was passed to the local authorities with a request from the Secretary of State that they look at other sources of funding for the road. One, perhaps, may be excused for thinking that it had taken the Department of Transport a long time to pluck up the courage to do what they have long appeared to want to do. They now show signs of wishing to divest themselves of the line protection responsibilities which currently require them to acquire and manage property blighted by the line. The responsibility for future of the road now lies with the metropolitan boroughs of Wigan and Bolton, primarily with the former as the greater length lies within Wigans boundaries. As far as anything is certain in this life, it looks as though the road, if built, will not be a motorway; it might even not rate dual-carriageways. It therefore passes outside the scope of the Motorway Archive and becomes one of those footnotes detailing what might have been."