The UK’s first cross-country motorway is set to mark a major milestone on Saturday with 65 years since the road welcomed traffic for the first time.
The M1 project to link London to Leeds was decades in the making, with the first plans for a motorway network in the UK now dating back more than a century, according to author and former chief highways engineer Ron Bridle.
Aspirations go as far back as 1923 for a London to Birmingham route, but it took until the Special Roads Act 1949 was passed to allow the first motorways to be planned in the 1950s.
The first to open was Lancashire’s Preston Bypass, now part of the M6, in 1958 – but the M1 became the first to link up far-flung towns and cities the following year.
