Major roadworks on Newcastle Central Motorway set to cause more travel chaos for next 18 months

The A167 Central Motorway will be cut to one lane in each direction through Newcastle city centre and closed completely overnight to allow for 'critical' repairs to a deteriorating concrete viaduct

12:02, 17 Jul 2025Updated 12:51, 17 Jul 2025

A road closure on a city centre motorway, with cars driving past bollards and police cars

Lane closures on Newcastle's Central Motorway are set to last for 18 months(Image: Iain Buist/Newcastle Chronicle)

Major roadworks through the heart of Newcastle are set to cause even more travel chaos for the next 18 months, council bosses have warned. A GBP9 million programme of upgrade to the A167(M) Central Motorway is due to begin in August and drivers have been told the project will be "highly disruptive".

Engineers will be tasked with making repairs to the decayed concrete on the elevated viaduct section of the motorway, which runs from junction with the Great North Road to the New Bridge Street roundabout in the city centre. Safety checks carried out on the 1970s structure earlier this year confirmed it had deteriorated, though transport bosses have said the structural issues are not as urgent as those which forced the closure of the Gateshead Flyover last December.[1][2][3]

The works will require the Central Motorway to be reduced to one lane in each direction during the daytime and for the busy route, used by up to 80,000 vehicles a day, to be fully closed overnight.

Restrictions will start to come into force in the week of August 11.

From that point until the end of September, the northbound carriageway will be cut down to one lane of traffic during the day and closed completely overnight. And as the scheme progresses through the autumn, those closures will be mirrored on the southbound side too.

Newcastle City Council [4] said that the works will last for up to 18 months and "will be highly disruptive to the travelling public" once the full overnight closures, which will also include key slip roads, begin. These repairs have been planned as part of a larger GBP41.4 million refurbishment scheme, the bulk of which is focused on the ongoing restoration of the Tyne Bridge.

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Halving the capacity of the Central Motorway for the next 18 months will add to the travel headache already faced by motorists on central Tyneside - with two of the Tyne Bridge's four lanes having been closed since last year and the condemned Gateshead Flyover remaining shut ahead of its impending demolition. The council said that major maintenance to the Central Motorway viaduct for the first time since 2004 was needed to "future-proof the structure" and that it has to be done "at the earliest opportunity" to avoid further decay.

Coun Juna Sathian, the council's cabinet member for transport and climate, said: "These are vital works to one of the key routes in our city.

It is really important that these works take place to ensure we have robust infrastructure in Newcastle, to help keep the city moving. It is over 20 years since the last maintenance on this route and we have campaigned hard and loud to secure the funding for this key part of Newcastle's infrastructure, which is also part of a GBP41.4m package which included the Tyne Bridge. With the Tyne Bridge's restoration well under way, it is important that we start this work at the earliest opportunity.

"We've worked hard to minimise disruption to the travelling public, but due to the viaduct's location and the number of slip roads that feed into it, it will be highly disruptive later in the year.

We are giving people early warning and will be setting out travel advice so people can plan ahead, allow more time for their journeys and make the switch to public transport where possible.

"We know there will be other works going on in the area, including the potential demolition of the Gateshead flyover, but we need to get these works under way at the earliest opportunity, as we don't want any further deterioration of this important part of our transport network."

VolkerStevin has been contracted to carry out the works, which will involve replacing 115 bridge deck joints, undertaking "critical" concrete repairs, and installing protection against further deterioration.

Liberal Democrat councillor Mike Cookson welcomed the repairs but that that transport in the city "remains chaotic and disconnected". The opposition party's transport spokesman added: "To spring this on residents and businesses with less than a months notice, with a delayed Movement Strategy, with no more than a vague mention of a promise of mitigation measures or alternative options to come later we're worried about the knock on implications. There will undoubtedly be impacts on surrounding communities, air quality and public transport.

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"The mitigation measures for the Tyne Bridge works still haven't been delivered, there's Active Travel money unspent, there's Bus Service Improvement Plan money unspent, there's the delayed and problematic roll out of the new Metro trains.

All of this isn't providing residents and businesses with the integrated and reliable transport system the city deserves"

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