A522

Route

The A522 is a non-primary road that is now, unusually, considerably longer than when first numbered. In the 1920s, the A522 went from the A50 at Upper Tean to Cheadle and on to the A520 at Wetley Rocks.

Uttoxeter - Wetley Rocks

A522 at Deadman's Green

Today the road starts further east in Uttoxeter. The exact start is debatable. Logic would state that the road begins on the A518 Town Meadows Way, before making its way through the centre of town. However, current Ordnance Survey maps claim this section to be a spur of the A518 and the A522 actually begins at a mini roundabout to the north of the town where the A518 morphs into the B5030. Road signage does not clarify the point.

Certainly, the A522 leaves Uttoxeter along New Road, meeting the A50 at a spread-out GSJ to the west of the town. Next to the road stands a huge JCB warehouse. The old A50 (current A522) through Beamhurst, Checkley and Lower Tean is still in good condition although subject to a 40-mph speed limit along most of its length. At Upper Tean the old road become unclassified and the A522 turns north at a poorly signposted TOTSO on to its original course. Further up the Tean valley the road passes though Cheadle. We meet the A521 in the centre of town and the A522 is the dominant partner in a multiplex lasting a few hundred yards (although originally it was the A521 that was dominant) until it heads up onto the moorland to join, and be subsumed by, the A52 westbound. Perhaps to aid traffic to Alton Towers, the A52 is required to TOTSO at this junction.

A mile further on, the A522 leaves the primary road and heads over the hill to Wetley Rocks, thus cutting off the corner between the A52 and A520. The road ends at a very sharp T-junction on the A520 towards the northern edge of Wetley Rocks. Continue straight for the A520 to Leek.

Original Author(s): Lez Watson