Overview
- National Highways will fully or partially close the M60 between Junctions 17 and 18 over the weekend of October 10–12 to remove and replace end‑of‑life gantries, with anticlockwise closure from 10pm Saturday to 6am Monday and clockwise closure from 11:59pm Saturday to 6am Monday.
- Official signed diversion routes will direct traffic via the A56, A6044 and A576 and drivers are being urged to only travel if necessary and to follow the temporary signs rather than relying on sat‑navs.
- Motorists should expect severe congestion and delays of up to three to four hours on diversion routes across Greater Manchester during the closure and are advised to allow extra time or choose alternative travel where possible.
- A separate early‑morning crash near Simister Island on October 8 briefly worsened queues between Junctions 18 and 19 but was cleared with lanes reopened around 7:40am and is not expected to affect the planned weekend works.
- The gantry work is part of the wider Simister Island improvement scheme running to 2029/30 with a budget of about £255–296 million to increase capacity at the junction that carries roughly 90,000 vehicles a day, and residents have been warned to expect overnight noise and further weekend closures as the project continues.