In 2019, this £50m motorway junction was built. It still isn’t open
In 2019, this £50m motorway junction was built. It still isn’t open
Gwyneth ReesSun, June 7, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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"It's a complete farce; absolutely mental," frowns David Bradbury, 48, a trucker, as he refuels his articulated lorry at a busy petrol station near Avonmouth, Bristol.
"And it shows the state of planning in this country."
The "farce" Bradbury, from Newport, South Wales, is referring to is just a few minutes' drive from where he's refuelling – a missing 160m link road off junction one of the M49.
The motorway – essentially a five-mile slip-road between Avonmouth's Royal Portbury Docks on the M5 and the Prince of Wales bridge, spanning the Severn Estuary into South Wales – was completed in 1996.
Subsequently, on adjacent farmland, a 300-acre distribution site – known as the Western Approach Distribution Park – emerged, comprising industrial warehouses for the likes of Tesco, Amazon and Royal Mail.
Due to the need for heavy HGV access to the site, in 2018, National Highways (formerly Highways England), began constructing a dual-bridge junction off the M49.
Lorry driver David Bradbury, 48, describes the delay as a 'farce' - Jay Williams
Costing £50m, it was completed in December 2019. It has been empty and unused ever since – a ghost junction leading nowhere. It's possibly the smoothest patch of road in Britain, with not a pothole in sight. The link road will finally be completed this autumn.
When The Telegraph visits the distribution site under a grey sky, passing by scores of colossal metal warehouses and nearby wind turbines, the long-awaited construction is clear to see.
Yellow diggers are mining the earth where the link road will pass, while workers stand by in hard hats, the connecting junction and busy M49 visible in the near distance.
The years of delay were because of a deadlock between the landowners, South Gloucestershire Council and National Highways, over who was responsible for the link road leading into the distribution site.
But it has been the lorry drivers, behind the wheels of their enormous cargo vehicles, who have suffered the consequences.
For the past seven years, they have been forced to clog up the nearby A403 and other minor roads, their presence causing significant congestion and delaying deliveries.
Peter Tyzack, an alderman and local councillor at Pilning and Severn Beach parish council, and formerly chairman of planning on South Gloucestershire council, says the fiasco was completely avoidable.
"This huge distribution site was built under planning rules from the 1950s," he says over the phone from his home in nearby Severn Beach.
"But when the M49 junction plan came about, it was clear to elected councillors such as myself that the land the link road would need to go on was not owned by the council or National Highways, and didn't have planning permission.
"I raised the issue repeatedly at council meetings and got no straight answers. But basically, there was no legal agreement in place for the landowner to give up its land. "After the junction was built, it then became clear that the landowner had sold off plots of the land, so the council then had to deal with more than 20 different organisations to secure it. This has taken years to sort out and caused costs to spiral. What a mess."
Cargo vehicles have clogged up nearby roads for the past seven years as a result of the delays - Jay Williams
The Telegraph understands that while National Highways was responsible for the junction, South Gloucestershire Council was responsible for working with the park's developer to build the link road leading off it.
The park's main developer is London-based Delta Properties, but some of the land was also divided into 2 sq m parcels and owned by faceless organisations, including two based in Jersey.
In 2021, South Gloucestershire Council said the responsibility for building the road lay with Delta Properties. But Delta Properties refuted the claim, saying it had "no legal obligation" to construct the link road. [Delta has since declined to comment to The Telegraph].
The road is due to open seven years later than intended - Jay Williams
The company did however agree to working with the council to resolve the issue.
In a 2021 statement, it said: "Commencement of works on site is contingent on finalising several landowner agreements with neighbouring landowners.
"[Delta] would have liked for these to have already been completed… but these third-party approvals are still awaited."
A planning application by the council for the link road was finally submitted in March 2023 – with £7m funding secured from the Department for Transport to pay for it.
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But as no land had yet been acquired, the council agreed to go ahead with a compulsory purchase order, while continuing negotiations with respective landowners.
At the time, Mike Drew, a Lib Dem councillor for Yate North ward, criticised the delays, telling a council meeting: "I still don't understand who made the decision to go ahead with this junction without having the land acquired first. It seems very suspicious that we have all these different landowners… who appear to have taken the opportunity to buy these ransom strips and make money from us.
"Someone needs to learn some lessons from this because it appears that if people are thinking about putting in a major infrastructure project, there is the potential for people to buy bits of land there and then hold highways, government, local authority, whoever, to ransom."
The years of delay were because of a deadlock over who was responsible for the link road leading into the distribution site - Jay Williams
It was not just acquiring the land that led to problems however. Planning permission was finally granted for the link road in November 2023, but it came with 18 conditions relating to ecological surveys, plus design and geotechnical work.
Impact assessments showed water voles were present in the pond fronting the Amazon warehouse building, close to where the link road was planned.
As water voles are a protected species, the team then had to work with Natural England to relocate them. A special licence was also needed to deal with great crested newts. There was also the issue of a cycle lane. The conditions stated that a section of an existing national cycle path, the 443-mile NCN4 which connects Greenwich in London to Fishguard in Wales, that ran up over the ghost junction and lay in the path of the planned link road, needed to be closed and fenced off.
Before work could begin a new temporary replacement cycle path had to be made operational – adding further delays. Indeed, it took until September 2025 for construction to finally begin, with the council stating it had finally "secured the 27 parcels of land".
The road is due to be opened this autumn – seven years late – and it is clear it cannot come soon enough, especially for the drivers.
The 300-acre distribution site contains warehouses for the likes of Tesco, Amazon and Royal Mail - Jay Williams
One such driver is Mark Rees, a trucker of nearly 40 years from Coleford, Gloucestershire. Twice a week he drives his lorry over the Severn Estuary to the park, delivering goods for a local freight company.
"The link road will be a godsend," he says from his driver's cab. "At the moment, I can have about an hour's detour when the traffic is bad." Tailbacks can be "huge", he adds. "It is wasting loads of money each time I come." Among the stream of imposing lorries, John Hinton, 83, a cyclist and former electrical craftsman for Oldbury Power Station, halts his ride to comment on the noisy construction.
Sitting astride his e-bike, he explains he does regular 27-mile loops from his home in the nearby village of Tockington to keep fit.
"I did use the cycle route over the M49 occasionally, but with all the construction in the area the routes have changed quite a lot," he says. "I just hope when the junction's finished it reduces HGV traffic on local roads."
Cyclist John Hinton is looking forward to seeing a reduction of HGV traffic on local roads - Jay Williams
The planning oversight and ensuing spiralling costs, however, is not unusual in the UK. Less than an hour's drive away, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, a 28-mile stretch of the Heads of Valleys road took 23 years to build, finally opening in 2025 and costing a billion more than planned.
In 2023, a report by campaign group Britain Remade found that the UK was spending up to eight times more on road and railway upgrades than other European countries.
Last month, the Competition and Markets Authority also criticised what it called a "short-term and fragmented approach" to road and rail infrastructure.
Its report concluded that up to £5bn a year could be saved through a Treasury-led improvement of public sector procurement on road and rail projects.
"The UK moves at a glacial pace when it comes to road infrastructure construction," says Brian Gregory, of the Alliance of British Drivers over the phone.
"The M49 junction is a prime example and shows how unintegrated the planning process is. If these roads are not there, the whole economy won't work."
It's thanks to the UK's 'glacial' infrastructure construction that the site has been left idle for so long - Jay Williams
A spokesman for South Gloucestershire Council says: "Construction of the link road is underway on site and due to be completed by the end of 2026."
While a spokesman for National Highways tells The Telegraph: "South Gloucestershire Council are building the link road after initial plans with developers fell through. We are fully supportive… and recognise the benefits that will bring to the local economy and communities."
Indeed, these economic benefits are significant and not just for the distribution park. "The area provides significant economic value and growth to the West of England economy – £3bn GVA (gross value added) in 2023," says Kate Royston, of SevernNet, a social enterprise for businesses and communities across Portbury, Avonmouth and Somerset.
"This is a critically-important port industrial area, with advanced manufacturing and processing, logistics, distribution and warehousing. The link road will provide much needed resilience and capacity to the area's road network."
When the M49 junction between Severn Beach and Chittening is eventually connected to the local road network it will bring economic benefits - Jay Williams
Back in Avonmouth, Bradbury finishes refuelling and reflects on the whole issue. Known in the industry as a "tramper" – someone who sleeps away from home in their driver's cab – he earns nearly £60,000 a year delivering cars to dealerships across the UK. "I don't mind this work," he says as he climbs back into his lorry. "And I earn decent money. But sometimes it feels like I'm just being paid to be sat in traffic going nowhere.
"There are loads of tailbacks or the extra detours we drivers have to sit in. We just want this junction open, and others too, so we can get on doing what we should be doing – working, and getting the economy moving."
Source: “AOL Breaking”
