Black Country Spine Road

See Also: Black Country Route

The Black Country Spine Road (or Black Country New Road) is a completed road scheme in the Black Country connecting the A463 Black Country Route on the southeast side of Wolverhampton and the 1970s constructed West Bromwich Expressway via the A41 and A4444. It therefore indirectly connected the M5 at junction 1 with the M6 at junction 10.

The road formed a bypass for a congested section of Thomas Telford's Holyhead Road, particularly through Wednesbury Town Centre. This section of Holyhead Road was extremely built up, and followed a poor alignment, including the climb up to Hill Top. Improvement to this section therefore required a totally new route to be found, not an easy task through the urban area.

History

1988 plan for the route

OS Landranger showing abandoned off-line section at Moxley

The road was first proposed in 1988, and proceeded quickly to a public inquiry held in September 1989. However, in May 1990 the Department for Transport announced a review of the road due to an escalation of costs, and on 18 July 1991 they annouced that they would not support the full proposed scheme and that they would only support the southern section of the scheme between Leabrook Road, Wednesbury (now the site of Parkway Roundabout) and Albion Roundabout at Carter's Green, West Bromwich, and then only if all the proposed grade separation was deleted. The northern section was later re-added, but in order to save costs instead of the proposed off-line route to the west of the A41 between Moxley Junction and Patent Shaft Roundabout, an almost on-line upgrade was completed, with the new dual carriageway being placed immediately to the west of the original Holyhead Road.

Work started on the road in late 1993, and completion was in stages between 1995 and 1997.

Upon completion, the majority of the former route was given the new number A4196, with the exception of a small section to the north of Wednesbury town centre which became an unclassified road.

Opening Dates

Date	Section
July 1995	The Lunt Junction - Moxley Junction
April 1997	Moxley Junction - Patent Shaft Roundabout
November 1995	Patent Shaft Roundabout - Navigation Roundabout
July 1995	Navigation Roundabout - Albion Roundabout

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