The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It is located entirely within England, running for just over 230 miles (370 km) from the Midlands to the border with Scotland. It begins at Junction 19 of the M1 and the western end of the A14 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby before heading north-west. It passes Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Preston, Lancaster and Carlisle before terminating at Junction 45 near Gretna. Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74(M) which continues to Glasgow as the M74. Its busiest sections are between junctions 4 and 10a in the West Midlands, and junctions 16 to 19 in Cheshire; these sections have now been converted to smart motorways.
The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston Bypass, which later became part of the M6.
The M62 is a 107-mile-long (172 km) west–east trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting Liverpool and Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; 7 miles (11 km) of the route is shared with the M60 orbital motorway around Manchester. The road is part of the unsigned Euroroutes E20 and E22.
The Gravelly Hill Interchange, popularly known as Spaghetti Junction, is a road junction in Birmingham, England. It is junction 6 of the M6 motorway where it meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway in the Gravelly Hill area of Birmingham. The interchange was opened on 24 May 1972.
Welcome Break Limited is a British motorway service station operator that operates 35 motorway service stations in England, Scotland and Wales. It is the second-largest motorway service area operator behind Moto. It also operates hotels and motels. It is a subsidiary of Applegreen.
Moto Hospitality Limited, trading as Moto, is a British service station operator which operates 59 motorway service stations across the United Kingdom. It is currently the UK's largest service area operator.
John Laing Group plc is a British investor, developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangements. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index until the court approved the acquisition of the company by KKR in September 2021.
The M63 motorway was a major road in the United Kingdom. It was completely renumbered, in 1998, to become a substantial part of the M60 motorway which orbits part of Greater Manchester.
Mowlem was one of the largest construction and civil engineering companies in the United Kingdom. Carillion bought the firm in 2006.
BAM Nuttall Limited is a construction and civil engineering company headquartered in Camberley, United Kingdom. It has been involved in a portfolio of road, rail, nuclear, and other major projects worldwide. It is a subsidiary of the Dutch Royal BAM Group.
The A4241 Port Talbot Peripheral Distributor Road is a distributor road serving Port Talbot, Wales.
The M6 motorway is a motorway in Ireland, which runs from Dublin to Galway. The M6 extends from its junction with the M4 at Kinnegad all the way west to the outskirts of Galway City, but the Athlone bypass and the approach to Galway city - while of dual carriageway standard - have not been designated motorway and are still signed as N6. The motorway was officially completed and opened to traffic on 18 December 2009, and was the first city-to-city direct major inter-urban route to be completed in Ireland. The M6 and M4, which form the Galway-Dublin route, consist of a grade-separated 2+2 dual carriageway road with a top speed limit of 120 km/h. At approximately 144 km (90 mi), the M6 is the third longest motorway in the state and will be 159 km.
Leonard Fairclough & Son Ltd was a construction firm based in Adlington, Lancashire, England.
In Ireland, the highest category of road is a motorway, indicated by the prefix M followed by a one- or two-digit number. The motorway network consists entirely of motorway-grade dual carriageways and is largely focused upon Dublin. There are also several three-lane motorways, while Ireland's busiest road, the M50, incorporates four-lane, five-lane, and six-lane stretches.
Sir James Drake was a chartered civil engineer who is regarded as the pioneer of the national motorway network in the United Kingdom. As the county surveyor and bridgemaster of Lancashire County Council from 1945 to 1972 he led teams that designed the first stretch of motorway opened to the public, the Preston By-pass on 5 December 1958. There then followed numerous contracts to extend the motorway in the north west of England, which, thanks to his role, probably still has the greatest density of motorways in the country. He was appointed a CBE in 1962 for his services as County Surveyor and Bridgemaster of Lancashire County Council and in 1973 he was knighted in recognition of his role as head of the North West Road Construction Unit and the Lancashire Sub-Unit, organisations that further extended his initial work.
A smart motorway, also known in Scotland as an intelligent transport system, is a section of motorway in the United Kingdom that employs active traffic management (ATM) techniques to increase capacity through the use of MIDAS technology including variable speed limits and occasionally hard shoulder running and ramp metering at busy times. They were developed at the turn of the 21st century as a cost-effective alternative to traditional carriageway widening, with intended benefits ranging from more reliable journey times to lower vehicle emissions. However, despite the risk of a collision occurring between two moving vehicles being found to be decreased, there has been an acknowledged rise in the incidence of collisions involving vehicles where at least one was stationary in the first few years following the widespread removal of the hard shoulder on the country's busiest sections of motorway. Smart motorways garnered intense criticism from politicians, police representatives and motoring organisations, particularly from 2020 onwards, after a surge in near miss incidents and dozens of fatalities were revealed, and as of April 2023, no new smart motorways will be built.
W. & C. French, also known just as French, was a civil engineering company based at Buckhurst Hill in south-west Essex.
The Thurcroft Interchange is a large motorway junction in South Yorkshire.
Lehane, Mackenzie and Shand was a British civil engineering and construction company, and responsible for some of Scotland's bridges.
