Ghost Motorway Junction Remains Unused Despite £50m Build Cost

A recently completed £50m motorway junction on the M49 in the outskirts of Bristol has yet to see any car action, because local developers have not built the service road that would connect a nearby retail park to the motorway network.

As a result, the junction remains empty and has not been used since completion eight months ago, and traffic from the retail park it was supposed to serve instead connects to the motorway network using local A roads; a situation this was meant to fix. Highways England says South Gloucestershire Council needs to sort it, while the council says the distribution park’s landowners need to pay for it to be done. The park hosts the likes of Amazon, Tesco, Lidl and Royal Mail, with a former worker on the site saying its owners are “holding the public to ransom” by refusing to build the connecting spur.

The image above shows the junction ending while pointing in the vague direction of the site’s warehouses, a situation the council is attempting to remedy by trying to “influence and help facilitate” the build of the final few hundred yards by the landlords. [BBC]