The M55 is a motorway in Lancashire, England, which can also be referred to as the Preston Northern Bypass. It connects the seaside resort of Blackpool to the M6 at Preston. It is 11.4 miles (18.4 km) in length.

Route

The M55 has three lanes in both directions for its entire length. After leaving the M6 at junction 32, the road immediately interchanges with the A6. It then crosses the West Coast Main Line and Lancaster Canal before passing north of Wesham to meet junction 3. It then continues west in a rural setting to meet junction 4, where the motorway ends and becomes the A5230. The western part of the M55, and the first few hundred metres of the A5230, occupy the route of the old Blackpool Branch railway line.

History

• M6 to Junction 1 opened as part of the M6 Preston Bypass in 1958.
• Junctions 1 to 4 opened in 1975.

The first motorway constructed in Great Britain was the M6 Preston Bypass, opened in 1958. This ran from the current M6 junction 29 to the M55 junction 1. It was built as a 2 lane route. In 1965 the M6 was extended north from what is the current day junction 32 to meet the Lancaster Bypass, and the M6 junction was rebuilt to its current design to connect the A6 at the now M55 junction 1. Due to increasing traffic, it was decided to provide a motorway link to Blackpool and this road was opened in 1975.

Some of the material for backfilling the new M55 was obtained from a nearby disused airfield at RNAS Inskip, where the runways were broken up and the land returned to agriculture. More material came from the Tootle Heights quarries in Longridge.

Unfulfilled Plans

Junction 2 was not built at the same time as the motorway, though the number was left free. A proposed South Ribble link road would have involved the extension of the M65 motorway around the west of Preston to link to the M55 at the missing junction. The link road proposal has been dormant since the mid-1990s. Between 1993 and 1995, the M6 around the east of Preston was widened to four lanes, making the link road proposal less likely.

Incidents

Aircraft test landing

During construction of the M55, the Jaguar military aircraft, from nearby Warton Aerodrome, made a test landing on the motorway, in order to prove its capability to use makeshift runways in time of war.

Junctions

M55 Motorway
Eastbound exits	Junction	Westbound exits
The NORTH WEST, Lancaster M6 The SOUTH, Manchester (M61), Liverpool (M58)	M6, J32	Start of Motorway
Preston, Broughton A6	J1 Broughton Roundabout	Preston, Broughton A6
Kirkham, Fleetwood A585	J3 Wesham Circle	Kirkham, Poulton-le-Fylde, Fleetwood A585
Start of Motorway	J4 Marton Circle	Great Marton, North Shore A583
Great Marton, North Shore A583 Non-motorway traffic		Road continues as A5230 to Blackpool, Airport and Lytham St Anne's

See also

• List of motorways in the United Kingdom

References

1. Route 6 - M6 timeline
2. The Motorway Database - M55 scheme page
3. CBRD Motorway Database - M55

External links

• CBRD Motorway Database - M55
• Lancashire County Council - Historic Highways - M55
• The Motorway Archive - M55