Emergency areas for UK’s M1 complete

Construction has been completed for 41 M1 emergency areas on the UK’s busy M1 motorway. The work has been completed ahead of schedule by the partners, SMP Alliance.

The areas cover three schemes spanning more than 48km between Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, and provide major safety benefits for road users. The 41 new emergency areas lie between junctions 28 and 35A of the M1 in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, along a 51km stretch. They are part of National Highways’ National Emergency Area Retrofit (NEAR) programme, a £390 million investment plan which, along with technology like stopped vehicle detection, aims to improve safety on the road network.

The emergency areas are stationed at regular intervals along the motorway where there is no permanent hard shoulder, offering a safe place for road users to stop in an emergency. Each area is approximately 100m long and is clearly marked in orange tarmac and blue signs with an orange SOS telephone symbol.

Costain, as SMP Alliance on-site assembly partner, has now completed the installation of the final 22 emergency areas between junctions 28 and 30, with the spacing between emergency areas reduced by half.

The 51km stretch of road, which carries more than 200,000 vehicles a day, is now fully open for traffic at the national speed limit and has been completed ahead of schedule, improving regional mobility within Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Jacky Li, project director at Costain, commented: “It’s a fantastic achievement to have delivered these three schemes ahead of schedule. Through a collaborative approach and a like-minded group of delivery and supplier network partners in SMP Alliance, we’ve been able to efficiently and safely deliver all 41 emergency areas for National Highways.

“Our work will improve the resilience of the local road network, and the additional emergency areas will increase safety, reduce disruption and improve mobility for road users for many years to come, helping to drive prosperity across Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.”

The completion of the work follows Costain completing an upgrade of the M6 in the North West in December last year, as well as a new stretch of dual carriageway on the A30 between Chiverton and Carland Cross in Cornwall.