A50 road
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The A50 is a major trunk road in England between Leicester and Warrington; historically it was the designation for a major route from London to Leicester.
The A50 runs west-northwest from Leicester to the M1. After a northbound concurrency, the A50 departs the M1.
The segment of the A50 from the M1 west-northwest to Stoke-on-Trent is dual carriageway, mostly built to near-motorway standards and providing access to Derby; in Stoke, it connects with other near-motorways, providing two direct connections to the M6.
The A50 departs the near-motorway within Stoke, travelling northwest as a mostly single carriageway route, ultimately terminating in Warrington.
Route
From Leicester into Stoke
The A50 runs from the City of Leicester to junction 22 of the M1 at Markfield. From there the route is concurrent with the M1 until it departs at the M1's junctions 24 and 24A near Kegworth.
The A50 then travels west-northwest as a near-motorway standard (lacking hard shoulders) dual carriageway. Crossing from Leicestershire into Derbyshire, the route runs south of the city of Derby.
Losing full access control, the route continues through Derbyshire into Staffordshire with a mix of interchanges and at-grade roundabouts.
Just before reaching Stoke-on-Trent, the A50 resumes its controlled-access, near-motorway status.
South of the city centre, the A50 exits the near-motorway, becoming a mostly single carriageway route. However, a spur of the A50 continues on the near-motorway toward the A500.
A50 Spur
The A50 Spur, which seems to also be designated on signs as the A50, travels to the Trentham Lakes North Junction, which provides access to the Bet365 Stadium. It then reaches a roundabout interchange with the near-motorway A500, which is grade-separated at the junction; the A500 provides direct access to junction 15 of the M6 southwest of Stoke and to junction 16 of the M6 northwest of Stoke.
From Stoke to Warrington
The A50 (the single carriageway, non-spur route) travels mainly northwest through the city centre of Stoke. Travelling through and departing Stoke, the A50 travels through Kidsgrove then, in Cheshire, Holmes Chapel and Knutsford. The route then meets the M6 at that motorway's junction 20. Continuing northwest, the A50 terminates in Warrington.
Notes
The Derby-and-Stoke section was originally intended to be part of an M64 motorway but this project was cancelled in the 1970s.
Proposed development
In November 2013 it was reported that funding would be being made available for improvements to the section around Uttoxeter, with work starting no later than 2015/16.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A few days earlier the MP was lobbying for the improvements, stating that improvements were needed to the traffic islands for safety reasons and to improve traffic flow.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> There are plans for 700 new houses to the west of Uttoxeter and to the south of the A50.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Needs update
History
Original route
Prior to the opening of the M1, the A50 route was one of two main routes from London to the north-west via Leicester, until it was replaced during the 19th century by what has become the A6. A third route between London and Leicester was via the A5 to Old Stratford, A508 to Market Harborough and thence the A6. That route and the A50 route both passed through Northampton which was a significant calling point on many coaching routes until the arrival of the railways.
Until the M1 opened, the A50 used to terminate at Hockliffe in Bedfordshire at a junction with the A5.
When the M1 motorway opened alongside the old route south of Northampton it was down-classified as:
- B526 between Northampton and the Newport Pagnell bypass.
- A509 between the Newport Pagnell bypass and Junction 14 of the M1.
- A5130 between Junction 14 and Woburn
- A4012 between Woburn and Hockcliffe.
From that point until the 1990s the southern point of the A50 was at a junction with the A508 in Kingsthorpe, Northampton.
In the 1990s, with the opening of the A14 and to discourage traffic from using the road between Leicester and Northampton, the old route was re-designated as A5199 between Leicester and Northampton.
At the same time the A50 became the A511 north of Leicester, between Burton upon Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Leicester when the dual carriageway section bypassing Derby was completed.
Modern route
Part of the route mirrored the plans for the original M64 motorway, with three lanes in some sections – notably between Kegworth and the A6 near Derby.
The new A50 route was opened in stages between March 1985 and 1999, with using various temporary designations:
- 1985: Template:Convert £16Template:Nbspmillion Blythe Bridge – Uttoxeter section from the north-west.
- 1992: £2.6M Etwall bypass, opened as the A516.
- 1995: Template:Convert £30.4M Hatton, Hilton and Foston bypass, opened by John Watts as the A564.
- 1997 (June): Template:Convert £52M section 1 of Blythe Bridge – Queensway.
- 1997 (September): the £109.5M Template:Convert Derby Southern Bypass (opened by Helene Hayman, Baroness Hayman, Minister for Roads at the DETR), as the A564.
- 1997 (September): The A6 Derby Spur.
- 1997 (November): the Template:Convert £21M section 2 of Blythe Bridge – Queensway.
- 1998: Template:Convert £20.6M Doveridge Bypass as the A564.
- 1999: the delayed A50/M1 junction 24a improvements.
On completion, the Southern Derby Bypass was re-designated as the A50, being maintained privately by Connect A50 Ltd. Much of this new section of road is made of concrete.
Junction list
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Incidents
- In 2008, two mentally ill Swedish sisters, Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, caused mayhem on the nearby M6, and one of them jumped from an overpass on the A50.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- On 15 April 2018, a police pursuit on the road ended in a collision between two cars near Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. A man was killed and three others were injured, one critically. Staffordshire Police's Collision Investigation Unit and the Independent Office for Police Conduct are both investigating.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Needs update
References
External links
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