‘Dead end’ motorway junction which cost £50,000,000 may finally be used

The unfinished M49 road between Severn Beach and Chittening, near Avonmouth (Picture: Tom Wren/SWNS)

A motorway junctions which has been accused of being the country’s ‘most expensive dead end’ as hardly any traffic is using it.

The M49 road was built to connect a distribution centre with the motorway and was completed in late 2019.

But years later no traffic is using it and motorists that drive down the motorway junction come to a dead-end.

And lorries accessing the industrial park have to drive through local villages.

However, nine separate conditions – which prevented the commencement of construction of a link road – have been discharged by South Gloucestershire Council.

The decision made on November 1, said it has found acceptable to discharge the conditions – meaning that now only two conditions remain.

It was supposed to connect a distribution centre with the motorway and was completed in late 2019 (Picture: Tom Wren/SWNS)

The discharged conditions include submitting a work schedule and a construction environmental management plan being approved.

Processes for soft and hard landscaping when creating the link road have been agreed and approved by the council.

Health and safety risk assessments have also been reviewed and found

acceptable by the council – and this will include the of construction traffic management plan.

Years later no traffic is using it and motorists that drive down the motorway junction come to a dead-end (Picture: Tom Wren/SWNS)

The remaining conditions preventing the construction of the link road now relate to the current cycle path – which was deemed ‘redundant’ in earlier plans submitted to the council.

The other conditions relate to either after the completion of the link road or during the development itself – but it would not affect the starting date.

The M49 ‘ghost junction’ has had a unstable time since it was built.

However in November last year it was reported that it could be built within the next 12 months.

But in December, a cabinet report said that it could still take up to three years to complete.

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