20 cars damaged by M6 pothole

AROUND 20 cars were damaged after a hole suddenly appeared on a Wigan stretch of the M6 during the morning rush hour.
A picture from the scene  showing cars on the hard shoulder - the pothole has now been filled inA picture from the scene  showing cars on the hard shoulder - the pothole has now been filled in
A picture from the scene showing cars on the hard shoulder - the pothole has now been filled in

The pothole, which appeared on the Gathurst viaduct between junction 27 at Standish and Junction 26 at Orrell, was quickly attended to by Highways England engineers.

It’s the second time in the last three months a pothole has appeared in this area with even more incidents stretching back over the years,

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A spokesman told the Evening Post that they had to put a temporary road block across all three lanes as they attended to the damage.

This was removed within six minutes though and the vehicles were allowed on their way with the middle lane repaired.

Sadly though, the damage had been done to a number of other vehicles.

Some road users reported spotting around 20 cars on the hard shoulder attending to their vehicles with breakdown services needed and, in some case, recovery vehicles were called tow them away.

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Beth Malory tweeted: “Huge pothole in the middle lane of M6 before jct 26. When I hit it there were 17 cars w/ flats at the side and no sign of police.”

Twitter user @Newcastlecalli added: “Too late, we hit it burst tyre, buckled alloy!! Had to be rescued by the wife to get onto a Job!!!”

Cars were still at the roadside hours afterwards as the recovery operation lasted throughout the morning.

The issue isn’t the first of its kind on the M6 around Wigan.

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Back in November, Highways England were forced to use a rolling road block to hold back traffic while they repaired another pothole on the southbound carriageway between the same junctions.

There were major problems back in 2011 too when the motorway was ground to a standstill for several hours after a pothole appeared.

The location, once again, was the southbound carriageway close to the Gathurst viaduct as it was in January 2012 too but on the northbound carriageway.

Permanent repairs were needed to rectify the problem.

Meanwhile, a sinkhole has appeared in Darlington Street East, at the crossroads outside Lidl.

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The hole has been gradually eroding over a few weeks and was boxed off.

Highways engineers began repairing it yesterday.

Local resident James Gibbons said: “This hole has been there for weeks now and they appear to be doing nothing about it.

“They’ve just put a fence around it which is making it difficult for drivers to navigate around. Not like Wigan Council to ignore these problems is it?”