Old Cumbria Gazetteer |
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| M6 motorway | ||
| county:- | Lancashire | |
| locality type:- | route | |
| locality type:- | motorway | |
| county:- | Cumbria | |
| locality type:- | route | |
| locality type:- | motorway | |
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 M6, Westmorland |
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| M6, Penrith Bypass |
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| M6, Penrith to Carlisle |
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| M6, Carlisle Bypass |
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 CumMwayS.jpg |
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| notes:- |
Motorway Planning |
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| Planning for motorways in Britain began in the 1930s, and was influenced by the autobahnen
in Germany. In 1936 the Institution of Highway Engineers made proposals of routes
in Great Britain which included Lancaster to Carlisle, Carlisle north to Edinburgh
and Glasgow, and Carlisle east to Newcastle. In 1938 the County Surveyors Society
recommended a national plan which included routes Lancaster to Carlisle, Carlisle
to Glasgow, and Carlisle east to join a motorway south of Newcastle. |
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| The major problems with traffic in Westmorland and Cumberland were congestion in Kendal,
Penrith and Carlisle, and winter blockages on the A6 on the Shap Fells. |
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| Before 1939 the Ministry of Transport recommended an experimental scheme for 62 miles
of motorway Warrington to Carnforth, bypassing Preston. World War II stopped work;
but even during the war, in the early 1940s, Winston Churchill and the Post War Reconstruction
Committe had plans for motorways. In 1943, Geofrey Lockwood, County Survayor for Cumberland
produced a Report on Highway Development in the Immediate Post War Years, which included
a motorwat bypassing Carlisle, on the west, and a regional motorway from Egremont
to Carlisle. This was considered by the government whose proposals included a Carlisle
bypass, but to the east, but no route from Egremont. Various enabling legislation
for motorways was made from 1945, including design standards. |
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| First Motorway |
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| Serious planning for motorways was made in the late 1940s. These plans designated
approximate routes along which other development was restricted to pre-empt conflicts. |
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| Britains first motorway was the Preston Bypass, 8¼miles, opened by Prime Minister,
Harold Macmillan, 5 December 1958. |
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| North South Motorway, M6 |
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| The M6 is one of the great north south routes in England. At Rugby it branches off
the M1 out of London, and continues to the border of Scotland; it is joined at Birmingham
by the M5 from the south west; around Manchester it connects with motorways serving
the area, and across the Pennines to the M1 at Leeds. |
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| Although designed to common standards, though modified by experience, the motorway
in Westmorland and Cumberland was built piecemeal, and not in geographical order. |
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| References |
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| Yeadon, Harry L: 2005: Motoway Achievement & Building the Network, the North West
of England: Motorway Archive Trust & Phillimore and Co (Chichester, West Sussex)::
ISBN 1 86077 352 4 Bladon, Stuart (ed): 1970 (about): Motorway Atlas of Great Britain: Autocar & Bartholomew, John and Son (Edinburgh) |
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| continued by:- |  A74(M), Carlisle to Gretna |
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