M6 closure to tackle damaged bridge

The M6 at Preston will be closed overnight as repairs continued on the bridge damaged by last week's crash.
The lorry hit the motorway bridge near BroughtonThe lorry hit the motorway bridge near Broughton
The lorry hit the motorway bridge near Broughton

The southbound carriageway will be closed between junctions 32 and 33 between 8pm tonight and 8am tomorrow as Highways England officers do extra work on the damaged area.

Extra protection will be added to the temporary column which was installed last week after a lorry hit the bridge.

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A diversion will be in place from junction 33 down the A6 to junction 1 M55.

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M6 blocked near Preston after lorry hits central reservation

The HGV collided with, then got wedged beneath, a low level bridge between Broughton and Galgate. The driver escaped relatively unharmed, but the incident caused traffic chaos, with miles of tailbacks on the motorway and the A6 and complete gridlock in Preston and Chorley.

Highways chiefs feared that the bridge would collapse once the lorry was removed, and engineers were brought in to assess the safety of the structure and put temporary supports in place.

Police were drafted in to hand out water bottles to motorists stranded on the motorway for hours in sweltering temperatures, and ambulance crews told of long delays in getting patients to hospital.