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'The Services on the A50'
[1].
The A50 passing through Frog Island,
Leicester
The A50 is a major trunk road in England. It runs from Warrington to Leicester; however it used to be a much
longer route.
Current
route
The A50 runs from the centre of Warrington via Junction 20 of the M6, Knutsford, Holmes Chapel, Kidsgrove and Stoke on Trent to
Junction 24 of the M1 near Kegworth, via Derby's southern bypass. From here the
A50 is concurrent with the M1, resuming again at Junction 22, the
A50 runs to the centre of the City of Leicester which is its southernmost
point.
Between Stoke and Derby what is now the A50 was planned to be
the M64. The
resulting A564, which borrowed the alias A50, is in effect this
motorway.
- The 9-mile (14 km) £16m Blythe Bridge - Uttoxeter section
(convenient for Alton
Towers traffic from the north-west) opened in late 1984 as the
A564.
- The 6-mile (9.7 km) £30.4m Hatton, Hilton
and Foston Bypass opened (as the A564)
on 25 May 1995, by John Watts.
- The 3-mile (4.8 km) £52m section 1 of the Blythe Bridge to
Queensway section opened in June 1997, and the 1-mile (1.6 km)
£21m section 2 opened in November 1997.
- Maybe as a reference to the former M64, the £109.5m 14.9-mile
(24.0 km) Derby Southern Bypass, was opened on 4 September
1997 by Helene Hayman, Baroness
Hayman, Minister for Roads at the DETR, as the A564.
Construction had started in February 1995. This was the main piece
in the jigsaw of the Stoke-Derby route, and mirrored the plans for
the original M64, even having three lanes in some sections -
notably the section from Kegworth to the A6 junction near Derby. The A6 Derby Spur
opened at the same time.
- The 5-mile (8.0 km) £20.6m Doveridge Bypass opened on 6 March 1998 also
as the A564. The £2.6m A516 Etwall bypass which opened in February 1992
allowed a quicker route to the west of Derby from this
section.
- The final section to be built, which was not a missing link,
but a junction improvement was the A50/M1 junction 24a. It was due
to open with all the rest of the road, but had been postponed in
March 1996. It opened in stages, beginning in June 1999 when the
north-bound slip-road opened. The section of the A50 from junctions
24a (in Lockington cum Hemington) and
24 (in Kegworth) of the M1
is still what was the former A6 and has not been widened. It is
only three lanes west-bound from junction 24a.
Once the Southern Derby Bypass was completed, it became the A50.
The road is maintained privately by Connect A50 Ltd. Much of the
new section of road is made of concrete.
Previous
routes
North of Leicester, before the dual carriageway section
bypassing Derby was built, the A50 formerly went through Burton upon
Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Leicester, but
that section is now designated the A511 road.
South of Leicester, the A50 used to terminate at Hockliffe in Bedfordshire at a
junction with the A5.
- The section from Leicester to Northampton is now designated the A5199 having been
down-classified when the A14 was
built to deter drivers from using this stretch assuming it was a
higher grade than it is.
- The section south of Northampton was down-classified when the
M1 was built as it runs parallel with the motorway and is an
unsuitable alternative:
- Between Northampton and the Newport Pagnell bypass it is now the
B526.
- Between the Newport Pagnell bypass and Junction 14 of the M1 it
is now part of the A509
road.
- From Junction 14 of the M1 to Woburn it is the A5130
- From Woburn to Hockcliffe it is the A4012.
The old A50 used to be the main route to London from Leicester,
before it was replaced in the 19th century by what is now the A6.
References
- ^ Image from Wikimedia Commons
June 2007
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