Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

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SBRoxMan
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Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by SBRoxMan »

Here's a Google Maps link for reference to what I'm talking about - https://www.google.com/maps/@53.3142481,-2.67287,17z

So this is something I've long been wondering due to how weird the layout of this roundabout/junction is. For a roundabout that serves 2 local roads and a supermarket, it's absolutely huge! Whenever going across it, it certainly feels like it was unfinished, as if it were built to serve a much larger motorway-like road that was never constructed. It's certainly large enough to accommodate a grade-separated road. What makes me suspect this even more is the connecting A533 to the west. The two carriageways are extremely far apart for no apparent reason, and the gap between them could easily be filled by a 6 lane road.

Considering this roundabout is so close to the M56 too, what I'm wondering is, were there once much bigger plans for this junction? Or was this just some oddity that happened to be built unnecessarily wide?
Last edited by SBRoxMan on Mon May 10, 2021 02:00, edited 1 time in total.
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TomJ
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A55 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by TomJ »

Someone here more seasoned than me would likely be able to give you a more definite answer, but it certainly looks like it was almost intended to give a free-flow link to the M56... Almost...
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by Bryn666 »

It was supposed to loop back around the east side of Runcorn and rejoin the Bridgewater Expressway.
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SBRoxMan
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by SBRoxMan »

Bryn666 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 09:46 It was supposed to loop back around the east side of Runcorn and rejoin the Bridgewater Expressway.
Interesting. Are there any maps showing the route it would've taken?
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by Bryn666 »

SBRoxMan wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 19:09
Bryn666 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 09:46 It was supposed to loop back around the east side of Runcorn and rejoin the Bridgewater Expressway.
Interesting. Are there any maps showing the route it would've taken?
Here's a rough overview - I'm sure Truvelo or others have actual engineering plans.

https://pavsargonauta.files.wordpress.c ... .jpg?w=584
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by Truvelo »

I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
Attachments
runc.jpg
How would you like your grade separations, Sir?
Big and complex.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by fras »

A most interesting thread, as I have always been puzzled why this roundabout is so huge ! What is really laughable is the road you get onto when you leave this roundabout and carry on on the A533 to Northwich, a journey I have made many, many, times in the 26 years we've lived in Crewe - the sharp curve to approach the bridge over the motorway with what I would call a "pretend dual-carriageway", including, within yards, a RH turn for the A56 junction to go west. Quite why this could not have been included in the roundabout when it was built all those years ago, one wonders. After this we get to the absurdly small roundabout where the A56 goes off east to Warrington, then the A533 becomes a really narrow road through what is a huge industrial estate. The huge HGV traffic here surely demands action, but I don't suppose I'll see it in my lifetime. There should be a motorway junction here and the A533 and also the A56 need considerable improvement, dualling would be best.
It is all an example of why we seem to be the duffers of Europe when it comes to roads. ALways plenty of money for consultants, though. Funny that.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by thomas417 »

Truvelo wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:53 I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
It’s bizarre to have all that free flow and the two junctions to the M56 you have to go round a roundabout.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

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Bryn666 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:43 Here's a rough overview - I'm sure Truvelo or others have actual engineering plans.
I don't have the drawings, but I do have a 1970s Liverpool A-Z, which includes Runcorn and shows this proposed road as dashed lines, at normal A-Z street map scale. It had various proposals attached to the alignment. There is a somewhat-parallel busway, that was never built either. What surprised me was the section alongside the west coast main railway. My guess would be whoever holds the plans from the old Development Corporation would have the greatest detail; that was probably where A-Z got their source.
thomas417 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 22:57 It’s bizarre to have all that free flow and the two junctions to the M56 you have to go round a roundabout.
This sort of thing was a common approach in New Towns, here and elsewhere. They really believed they were working on a self-contained island where everyone would just live/work/shop/visit by circulating pretty much wholly within their designated area. Looking at New Town Development Corporation maps you might be forgiven for thinking you were looking at the Isle of Wight or similar.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by SBRoxMan »

Truvelo wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:53 I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
It's no wonder it didn't get completed, I can't imagine the expressway to the far right ever having the need to be dual carriageway nor grade separated
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by Steven »

SBRoxMan wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 23:31
Truvelo wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:53 I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
It's no wonder it didn't get completed, I can't imagine the expressway to the far right ever having the need to be dual carriageway nor grade separated
Remember that other than Milton Keynes, none of the New Towns ever ended up at their planned populations - even this many years later they've not got that far; hence many of the plans seem to make little sense on the sizes of the towns are are familiar with.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by jackal »

thomas417 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 22:57
Truvelo wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:53 I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
It’s bizarre to have all that free flow and the two junctions to the M56 you have to go round a roundabout.
True though it looks like fewer freeflow junctions were proposed at that time than were actually built, with a roundabout at Weston Point Expressway/Weston Link. (I thought at first there was also one at Central Expressway/Daresbury Expressway/Bridgewater but I think it's just a different freeflow design than what was built and later removed.)
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

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WHBM wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 22:58
thomas417 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 22:57 It’s bizarre to have all that free flow and the two junctions to the M56 you have to go round a roundabout.
This sort of thing was a common approach in New Towns, here and elsewhere. They really believed they were working on a self-contained island where everyone would just live/work/shop/visit by circulating pretty much wholly within their designated area. Looking at New Town Development Corporation maps you might be forgiven for thinking you were looking at the Isle of Wight or similar.
Yes, they all suffer from this to some extent. The classic example is probably Milton Keynes, built with a dense network of high capacity grid roads and situated right alongside the M1, but with connections to the motorway that suggest they were an afterthought.

Weirdly, central government planners in the late 1960s expected that traffic generated by Milton Keynes would increase flows on the M1 between Northamptonshire and London by 10-15,000 vehicles a day, so they knew that people would be travelling outside their own town, but the memo doesn’t seem to have reached the New Town Development Corporation who didn’t provide the means for that level of traffic to reach the M1 in the first place.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by SBRoxMan »

WHBM wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 22:58 This sort of thing was a common approach in New Towns, here and elsewhere. They really believed they were working on a self-contained island where everyone would just live/work/shop/visit by circulating pretty much wholly within their designated area. Looking at New Town Development Corporation maps you might be forgiven for thinking you were looking at the Isle of Wight or similar.
That's pretty bizarre. Sure it's handy to have all that stuff right on your doorstep, but why would they think that would stop someone from wanting to go elsewhere?
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by WHBM »

Different philosophies. The MOT model would be based on general population in adjacent and distant areas, and the concept of "relative attraction". It was based on some empirical study and some general O&D theory. It was also my first, ever, introduction to computers, at university, where an engineering lecturer had obtained a Fortran model that ran on the university's classic ICL mainframe computer which did this.

Meanwhile New Towns, originally called "Garden Cities" (hence Welwyn G C etc) were based on the theory of one man, Ebenezer Howard, who devised the concept of new developments planted down wherever. They really had their heyday in 1950-70, before all the downsides became apparent. You find the same approach in say Russia, where it was a more viable concept as it was hundreds of miles to the next settlement and the roads were impassable for six months of the year. There is actually a longstanding enthusiasts group for the concept, the "Town & Country Planning Association" https://www.tcpa.org.uk/our-history-1 , who however seem to have moved on now to sustainability and green-ness. Another one of our lecturers, not the sensible engineering one, ended up as its chief executive, about 30 years later, where he wrote a stream of waffly accounts trying to justify it all.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

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The 1960s/70s new town ideologies were heavily inspired by municipal socialism where you'd be a resident in a council house, working for the council, shopping in shops which were in floorspace owned by the council which was separate but worked with the Development Corporations of the time.

Unfortunately for this ideological approach the council houses were often undesirable - Southgate in Runcorn is a notorious example, the employment didn't exist, and the shopping offer was fairly naff too. Expanded towns, like Runcorn, got around this by having established local businesses that never shifted to the adjacent monolith.

A bit more private development led to the more successful new towns like MK and Telford cropping up. By most metrics places like Skelmersdale and Cumbernauld are utter failures serving only as commuter satellites now. Skelmersdale hasn't even got a railway service, although plans exist to resolve that.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by WHBM »

Bryn is spot on with the "enforced socialism" approach, which of course was attractive to certain politicians. In Edinburgh we were regularly shown, by the Town Planners down the corridor, Cumbernauld, which was somewhat complete by this time, and Livingston, which was getting going. Several of the university staff had been, or were, working on both. It was always notable that when we questioned things like railway access it was seen as irrelevant, even bus service was not really thought about (we went on a study trip to see the busways in Runcorn). You were expected to live, work, shop, eat, go for walks, doubtless even find girlfriends, just wholly within the New Town designated area.

In particular the housing in the plans was seen as wholly state-owned; I still notice this in political flyers nowadays where the only mention of housing is about council houses. In Scotland there was a timewasting three-way tussle over house ownership. There was the New Town Development Corporation, which provided and managed the majority of new builds. Then there was the local council, who wanted to build there, and who of course owned all the existing council house stock that fell in the designated area. Thirdly there was an oddball organisation, the Scottish Special Housing Association, which was quasi-under the Scottish Office in Edinburgh, and which originally had been set up to do public housing in small Scottish authorities who didn't have the wherewithall to manage this themselves, but had expanded their remit considerably and built all over Scotland. The turf war between these three took up much of their management's time. The New Town houses were something of a contemporary architect's ego trip for ideas popular then but which fell out of favour, such as flat roofs.

An interesting commentary in the classic film "Gregory's Girl", set in Cumbernauld in the 1980s, where there is a sneering reference to "those people up in the private houses". Not that the Development Corporation allowed many, and they were rigidly kept isolated on the periphery.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:12 The 1960s/70s new town ideologies were heavily inspired by municipal socialism where you'd be a resident in a council house, working for the council, shopping in shops which were in floorspace owned by the council which was separate but worked with the Development Corporations of the time.

Unfortunately for this ideological approach the council houses were often undesirable - Southgate in Runcorn is a notorious example, the employment didn't exist, and the shopping offer was fairly naff too. Expanded towns, like Runcorn, got around this by having established local businesses that never shifted to the adjacent monolith.

A bit more private development led to the more successful new towns like MK and Telford cropping up. By most metrics places like Skelmersdale and Cumbernauld are utter failures serving only as commuter satellites now. Skelmersdale hasn't even got a railway service, although plans exist to resolve that.
Cumbernauld was highly praised in the 1962 Buchanan Report. At that time, I'm not sure how much had been built so the report may have been based on looking at plans. I had the paper-back version for years, but it eventually fell to bits, and I suspect the missus threw it out in the mid-80s sometime !
Here's a debate in the House of Commons on it with Mr Earnest Marples the Minister of Transport leading the debate !!
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... d-crowther
So many themes we are familiar with today nearly 60 years later.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by owen b »

Steven wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 07:27 other than Milton Keynes, none of the New Towns ever ended up at their planned populations - even this many years later they've not got that far; hence many of the plans seem to make little sense on the sizes of the towns are are familiar with.
:bulb: Which makes me wonder whether good quality development of existing new towns to their originally planned population might relieve some of the huge pressure for new housing which is blighting so much green belt and (in a Sabristic context) prompting so many bypasses to be messed up with low quality new junctions, eg. Witney, Royston, Ampthill to name a few which I am familiar with.
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Re: Was something meant to be constructed at the A533 Southern Expressway roundabout?

Post by traffic-light-man »

This is an interesting thread indeed and it answers a few questions I've had over the years.
Truvelo wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 20:53 I don't have any large scale drawings but I do have overall plans showing the full extent of the proposed expressways.
Thanks for sharing that drawing, it's a brilliant bit of insight.

I like what appears to be some optimism at a duplicate Silver Jubilee Bridge up at the top of that plan, presumably the same optimism that generated that small stub of the now-demolished approach bridge.
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