B5225

Water Street

The B5225 is a confusing B-road on either side of, but no longer crossing, the boundary between Manchester and Salford.

The road starts at traffic lights on the A34 Quay Street in Manchester and heads west along the final section of Quay Street before meeting Water Street. The road to the right is a spur of the B5225 back to the A34 New Quay Street but the mainline of the B5225 turns left along Water Street. It passes Granada TV and the Museum of Science & Industry, going under two railway bridges which are part of the museum's territory, before ending at traffic lights on the A6143 Liverpool Road which has to TOTSO to complete Water Street.

Originally the B5225 turned right onto Princes Bridge to cross the River Irwell (it later gained a spur to meet the A6143) and continue west along Hampson Street; this road was severed with the building of the A6042 (Princes Bridge now ends hanging in mid-air) and so the B5225 reappears at traffic lights on the new road. It heads west under the Manchester to Warrington railway line before ending one block west at the next set of traffic lights on the B5461 Ordsall Lane.

Until the 2000s this junction was a roundabout and the B5225 continued beyond Ordsall Lane along the remainder of Hampson Street as far as the A5066 Oldfield Road. Hampson Street has now been blocked off and it is possible the road will disappear in the next stage of redevelopment.

The B5225 originally ran along Hope Street

Even this was not the original western end of the B5225. Originally it zigzagged across Oldfield Road to run along the entire length of Hope Street before ending in the railway yard on the near side of where Brunel Avenue is now. Hope Street was severed by the construction of the Windsor Link in the 1980s but it appears that the road was declassified some years earlier.