Simister Island overnight closures planned

Wednesday, 26 August 2026 15:29

By George Lythgoe

Simister Island on the M60 will be closed overnight this week and next week as part of the major works on the junction.

Tonight (August 26), from 9pm until 6am, junction 18 will be shut. The same overnight closures will also take place tomorrow (August 27), September 1 and September 2.

National Highways made the decision to avoid these closures over the bank holiday weekend, according to their website. Diversion routes will be put in place for those passing through.

These works form part of the major interchange upgrade, currently estimated to be completed by 2030. The project will see five lanes of traffic and a new link road will be created at Junction 18 in a bid to ease congestion, following official confirmation by the Department for Transport (DfT) last year.

Simister Island interchange, which connects the M60, M62 and M66 motorways, is notorious for being one of the North West’s busiest motorway junctions. The scheme – estimated to cost between £255m and £296m – aims to reduce congestion, improve journey times and create a safer route.

The junction is used by around 90,000 vehicles each day, according to National Highways.

The project itself will see a ‘northern loop’ built to stop thousands of vehicles using the current traffic light controlled roundabout every day. A five-lane section on both sides of the M60 between Prestwich and Simister (junctions 17 and 18) has been touted as well.

The M66 on the Bury side of the junction would also be widened with new lanes introduced at the interchange and a second lane added from the M60 northbound link.

National Highways said: “Simister Island Interchange is one of the busiest motorway junctions in the north-west used by around 90,000 vehicles each day. The junction struggles with such high volumes of traffic above what it was designed for, and as a result suffers from congestion and poor journey time reliability.

“The project will improve junction 18 of the M60 and facilitate smoother flows of traffic along the connecting motorways, contributing to more reliable and safer journeys into and around Greater Manchester.”