Slip road from Ditton Junction to Speke Road to close for five months
A major slip road in Widnes will be closed for five months from next week (2 December) with local diversions put in place as part of the works to build the link roads to the new Mersey Gateway Bridge.
The planned closure of Ditton Junction to Speke Road on-slip road will start on 2 December and is scheduled to last through to April 2015.
A signed diversion route will be in place, which will take traffic west on Ditton Road to the Hale Road junction and then back onto Speke Road.
More details, including a map of the diversion route, are available at https://merseygateway.co.uk/down-your-street/section-1-ditton-junction/.
It is the first tranche of construction activity in this area, and marks the start of a series of roadworks in and around Ditton Junction that will carry on for the next three years.
Once this on-slip re-opens in April 2015, the off-slip from Speke Road to Ditton Roundabout will then be closed for approximately four months with a similar local diversion in place.
When the new Mersey Gateway Bridge opens, the main A562 Speke Road, which leads towards Liverpool, will be redirected to take traffic directly to and from it. There will be no toll barriers or booths so traffic will flow freely across the river.
Simon Matthews, Senior Operations Manager with Merseylink, said: “Ditton Roundabout is a very busy junction and we realise that this closure will have an impact on drivers, and we’d encourage people to allow extra time for their journey in the area. We are scheduling the work in this area to try and minimise and streamline the closures to keep traffic moving as much as we can.”
When it opens in 2017, both the new bridge and the Silver Jubilee Bridge will be tolled, but they will be free* to all Halton residents.
