The New Year will see motorists using the M6 South of Junction 40 at Clifton face disruption as Network Rail begins a major infrastructure project to replace the deteriorating West Coast Main Line bridge across the M6 at Clifton.
The £60 million scheme will require upto 18 months of lane closures, including a 50mph speed restriction, starting on 6th January 2025.
The hard shoulder and lane one of the M6 will close to traffic from the 6th of January as work gets underway to build a new slip road access onto and off the M6 for a large works compound located on the Westside of the M6 at Clifton.
The compound will be used to construct the new replacement bridge with construct office and works buildings and plant machinery storage used over the 18months of the project by Network Rail.
As work gets underway the hard shoulder and lane one of the South bound carriageways will also be closed to enable work to get underway on the embankments around the bridge with some overnight closures of the M6 ahead of planned closures of the M6 and WestCoast Main line in January 2026 when the bridge will be removed and the new bridge put in place.
The M6 will see full closures over two weekends and the west coast main line will be closed for upto 14 days.
Works will get underway to build the slip roads tooth compound on the 6th of January with the compound construction expected to be completed by March including temporary office blocks and two roundabouts and parking for the workforce involved in the £26 million pound Network Rail project.
The existing bridge is now 57 years old and is formed of a three-span twin concrete under bridge with the central span of the structure passing over 6 lanes of the M6.
The bridge was constructed over a two-year period and moved into place in 1967, the year before the section of the M6 opened.
Network Rail has said “A number of structural defects have been detected, with a requirement to reconstruct the bridge.” including hairline fractures and numerous areas of spalled concrete and exposed secondary reinforcement throughout the superstructure.
Widespread cracking to post-tensioned box girder both internally and externally and the bearings that are heavily corroded.
The M6 will also see work to replace bridges across the Lune Gorge at Tebay get underway in 2025 along with the potential start of the A66 upgrade, but work to replace Kemplay roundabout will not start until after the work on the WestCoast rail bridge is completed and the M6 lane closures are removed in mid 2026.
Then select "Add to Home Screen"
