Cracks in M60 force closure

Mysterious cracks have appeared in the newest stretch of Greater Manchester’s motorway ring road at Middleton less than a decade after it opened.

Now six miles of the £220m “missing link” section of the M60, beginning at the Middleton junction, is to close for the next six weekends while Highways Agency engineers try to find the cause.

Work will start at 9pm on Friday night and finish at 5am on Monday between junctions 19 at Middleton and 23 at Ashton and last until August, weather permitting.

A full carriageway closure will be in place with a contraflow on the opposite side of the motorway while the work is being carried out. Various entry and exit slip roads will also be closed. A 40mph speed limit will be in place throughout the roadworks.

The engineers will dig a trench across the whole carriageway in an attempt to find the cause of tiny cracks which have been appearing in the road surface.

Matthew Sweeting, Highways Agency operations manager for the area, said: “We don’t know why the cracks have started appearing. They are quite small cracks and pose absolutely no danger to drivers and until now, we have been fixing them as they appear.

“But they shouldn’t be there so early in the life of the motorway and it has got to the stage where we decided to have a full investigation.”

Overhead message signs will be used to advise drivers of the closures so they can choose an alternative route.

Mr Sweeting added: “It might turn out not to be that serious and we can simply carry on mending them as they appear.

“But if remedial works are needed, closing the motorway at that point is not an option. It is not the busiest section of the motorway but it is very busy. There would have to be some form of traffic management while the work was done.”

The cracks are not connected to the flooding of the carriageway which cost £4.6 million to tackle on the same part of the ring road three years ago.