Preston By-pass

Preston Bypass
Shown in blue
Route information
Length	8.26 mi (13.29 km)
History	Opened in 1958, upgraded and rebuilt in 1995
Major junctions
South end	A6 – Bamber Bridge
Major intersections	A59
North end	A6 – Broughton
Location
Country	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Road network
Roads in the United Kingdom Motorways A and B road zones

The Preston Bypass was the United Kingdom's first motorway, opened in 1958. It was designed and engineered by Lancashire County Council surveyor James Drake as part of a larger initiative to create a north-south motorway network that would later form part of the M6 motorway. The original 8+1⁄4-mile (13.3 km) motorway ran around the east side of Preston between Bamber Bridge (now the M6, Junction 29) and Broughton (now the M55, Junction 1) and crossed over the River Ribble at Samlesbury at the M6 Junction 31.

Planning started in 1937, despite no legal powers permitting motorway construction until the introduction of the Special Roads Act 1949. Early work was hampered by heavy rainfall, resulting in the postponement of various heavy engineering works, such as the base foundation; the result of the weather meant the original two-year plan was delayed by a further five months. The bypass was opened on 5 December 1958 by the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. Nearly £3 million was spent on its construction. Weeks after opening, the road had to close temporarily due to water causing other problems when the base layer was damaged due to a rapid freeze and thaw cycle.

The bypass had undergone two separate lane-widening schemes, first in 1966 when it was widened to three lanes, then in the 1990s to expand to four lanes in each direction. The latter upgrade was significant enough to require reconstruction of the entire route, including all bridges, and it is now effectively a different motorway from the one that opened in 1958. As a result, the oldest surviving motorways today are the M1 (between Junctions 5 and 18) and the full length of the M45 which both opened one year after the Preston Bypass.^[1]