Britain’s £40m ‘ghost’ motorway junction has never opened - and now needs repairs after six years sitting empty
A junction near Bristol is now in need of repairs despite never been open to drivers
A £40 million motorway junction which has never opened to drivers is now in need of repairs, prompting fears taxpayers could be forced to pay again.
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Liberal Democrat Claire Young has told LBC the junction’s construction raises serious questions, asking: “Was it cutting corners?” and “Whose decision was it?”
The MP for Thornbury and Yate is demanding answers for her constituents, who she says have told her: “This is just more evidence that in this country you can't get things done properly, that we've got crumbling infrastructure.”
The ghost junction was built over the M49 motorway, a short road between the M5 at Avonmouth and the M4 Prince of Wales Bridge across the River Severn, between England and Wales.
The project was finished in late 2019 but has never been connected to local routes.
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Now, after six years laying empty, it has been confirmed the more than £40 million structure needs repairing.National Highways has refused to confirm to LBC how much these repairs will cost, saying only that it “remains committed to opening the junction as this will benefit the regional economy and communities”.
“For safety reasons these defects must be addressed before we can connect it to local authority roads,” it added.But MP Claire Young has told LBC she believes “a novel technique was used so [the junction] would take up less land”.
Young says questions need to be answered about whether this was “cutting corners effectively”, as she fears the future use of this technique could have “implications for other junctions” built in the future.
She said: “If the way National Highways agreed the contract has left taxpayers open to huge sums of money being needed to fix the problem, then that is a problem which could affect other projects across the country”.
Roads Minister Justin Madders previously told the House of Commons the defects in the M49 motorway junction were visible as early as 2021, “including loss of topsoil and surface cracking”.
He said: “These came to light as part of the standard inspections that take place across the network and, at that stage, these were not deemed significant and so, National Highways put standard operating arrangements in place to monitor the structure.
“However, this ongoing monitoring identified the need to undertake detailed investigations, which were commissioned in 2025, resulting in the identification of geotechnical issues.”
Responding to this, Claire Young told LBC it is unacceptable she still has not been told when these defects will be fixed.
“They have not been open to speaking about timeframes, and nor was the minister... it’s farcical that local people and businesses are having to wait for this and have absolutely no idea about timescales.
“It was really concerning to hear that they first realised there were problems in 2021. That's five years ago. And apparently it took until last year to realise that it might be more serious than they first thought, but still, they didn't say anything to me and they didn't say anything to other stakeholders.
“And it was only this summer that I got the phone call and I had a meeting with them, and they would not commit to timescales.”
In his response, the roads minister said “the Government has already provided around £10 million of support to support the development of the link road” to the junction.
Justin Madders added: “There are limits to the funding we can provide but we will commit to prioritising the technical issues that we described today.
“The Government’s approach is clear - National Highways must identify the right engineering solution, agree an appropriate delivery route to protect taxpayers’ interests and provide stakeholders with realistic, deliverable timescales.”
Mr Madders said: “The public do not distinguish between a motorway junction, a local link road, a developer obligation, a council-led connection and a National Highways asset – they see one road, one promise, and one delayed outcome.
National Highways has been approached for further comment.