News / Transport
‘Ghost junction’ debacle could finally be fixed
The M49 ghost junction debacle is finally set to be sorted after South Gloucestershire Council announced plans to buy the land by force.
But council bosses admits they do not know who owns one of the plots needed to build a 160-metre road that will connect the motorway roundabout to the local network.
A report to cabinet, which will authorise compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) on Friday, said that while officers will continue to negotiate sales and a CPO would be used only as a “last resort”, it is “highly unlikely” that the scheme can be finished without them.
The report also names the landowners for the first time and reveals a hotchpotch of land parcels, verges, wasteland, drains and access rights – some as tiny as two square metres – that belong to different entities, two of which are companies registered in Jersey.
National Highways spent £40m to £50m building the M49 junction between Severn Beach and Chittering, which was completed in 2020 but can currently only be traversed by bicycle.
It should have provided easy access to the nearby Severnside industrial estates and huge distribution centres, including Amazon, Tesco and Lidl.
But the adjoining land issues were never resolved before the roundabout over the motorway was created and it has stood as a white elephant ever since, unconnected to local roads which get clogged with large numbers of lorries forced to take the long way around.
The cabinet report said the council would acquire the plots it needs but that because the CPO process takes so long and any objections from landowners require a public inquiry, the work would probably not start until August 2023 at the earliest and be completed between August 2025 and February 2026.
If there are no objections, the £7m link road – which is being funded by National Highways – could be open to drivers by November 2024.
The report said a section of private estate road comprising the Travelodge roundabout and a stretch between Palmer Avenue and Goldcrest Way needed to be upgraded, while a new section and an embankment would be constructed from there to the M49 to connect it with the A403.
Main photo: National Highways
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