A50 Road - Current Route

Current Route

The A50 runs from Warrington via Junction 20 of the M6, Knutsford, Holmes Chapel, Kidsgrove and Stoke on Trent to Junction 24 of the M1 near Kegworth, via Derby's southern bypass. From here the A50 is concurrent with the M1, resuming again at Junction 22, the A50 runs to the centre of the City of Leicester which is its southernmost point.

Between Stoke and Derby what is now the A50 was planned to be the M64. The resulting A564, which borrowed the alias A50, is in effect this motorway.

• The 9-mile (14 km) £16m Blythe Bridge - Uttoxeter section (convenient for Alton Towers traffic from the north-west) opened in late 1984 as the A564.
• The 6-mile (9.7 km) £30.4m Hatton, Hilton and Foston Bypass opened (as the A564) on 25 May 1995, by John Watts.
• The 3-mile (4.8 km) £52m section 1 of the Blythe Bridge to Queensway section opened in June 1997, and the 1-mile (1.6 km) £21m section 2 opened in November 1997.
• Maybe as a reference to the former M64, the £109.5m 14.9-mile (24.0 km) Derby Southern Bypass, was opened on 4 September 1997 by Helene Hayman, Baroness Hayman, Minister for Roads at the DETR, as the A564. Construction had started in February 1995. This was the main piece in the jigsaw of the Stoke-Derby route, and mirrored the plans for the original M64, even having three lanes in some sections - notably the section from Kegworth to the A6 junction near Derby. The A6 Derby Spur opened at the same time.
• The 5-mile (8.0 km) £20.6m Doveridge Bypass opened on 6 March 1998 also as the A564. The £2.6m A516 Etwall bypass which opened in February 1992 allowed a quicker route to the west of Derby from this section.
• The final section to be built, which was not a missing link, but a junction improvement was the A50/M1 junction 24a. It was due to open with all the rest of the road, but had been postponed in March 1996. It opened in stages, beginning in June 1999 when the north-bound slip-road opened. The section of the A50 from junctions 24a (in Lockington cum Hemington) and 24 (in Kegworth) of the M1 is still what was the former A6 and has not been widened. It is only three lanes west-bound from junction 24a.

Once the Southern Derby Bypass was completed, it became the A50. The road is maintained privately by Connect A50 Ltd. Much of the new section of road is made of concrete.