Car commuters will be breathing a sigh of relief after Manchester City Council announced the Mancunian Way will fully re-open on June 15.
A contraflow section has been in operation on a short section of the road between London Road and Fairfield Road since August when a huge sinkhole appeared after heavy rain, causing major damage to a key sewer.
United Utilities has now completed a £6 million tunneling project to lay a new sewer and is carrying out further replacement highway drainage work and resurfacing on behalf of Manchester City Council.
As a final step before the 6am Wednesday reopening, the whole of the Mancunian Way will need to be closed the Monday and Tuesday before for its annual maintenance inspection and to remove the contraflow system and repaint road markings.
Councillor Kate Chappell, executive member for environment for Manchester City Council, said: “It’s great news that we have got a date for the reopening. We’d like to thank the public for bearing with us during this challenging work.
“As the damage affected a major sewer there was no alternative but for United Utilities to carry out this complex large-scale repair deep underground otherwise large parts of East Manchester would have been left without a functioning sewage system and the water supply to the city centre would have been cut off.
“It’s great news that United Utilities have carried out this difficult repair without disruption to water and sewage network and we appreciate all their hard work.”
Diversion routes for June 13-14 will be signposted.
The scale of the work makes this the biggest emergency sewer repair United Utilities has ever undertaken.
The equivalent of 3,992 Olympic-sized swimming pools of sewage have been pumped past the roadworks and 400 metres of temporary pipework has been laid.
Meanwhile three of the largest mobile pumps in the UK have been used – each one foot in diameter and capable of shifting 500 litres of wastewater a second, 24 hours a day.
Image courtesy of BBC via YouTube, with thanks.
