M67 Breakdown
Recovery Service

The M67 is a motorway that ends in frustration — literally. Running just 6 miles from the M60 at Denton eastward towards the Peak District, it was planned as part of a full trans-Pennine motorway linking Manchester to Sheffield. That grand vision was never realised, and the M67 terminates abruptly at Mottram, where three lanes of fast-moving motorway traffic must funnel onto the congested single-carriageway A628 Woodhead Pass or the A57 Snake Pass to continue eastward. The resulting bottleneck at Mottram has been one of Greater Manchester's most notorious traffic problems for decades, and plans for a bypass have been in various stages of planning and cancellation since the 1960s.

The motorway passes through the eastern suburbs of Manchester — Denton, Hyde, and Hattersley — areas that sit at the foot of the Pennines where the Greater Manchester urban area gives way to the open moorland of the Peak District National Park. The Tame Valley through which the M67 runs was historically an industrial corridor, with cotton mills and chemical works lining the river, and the legacy of that industrial past is still visible in the Victorian mill buildings and terraced housing that flank the motorway.

The weather transition along the M67 can be dramatic. Conditions at the Denton end may be dry and mild while the Mottram terminus, just 6 miles away but significantly higher, is shrouded in hill fog or pelted with rain. Drivers heading east onto the Pennine passes need to be prepared for a rapid deterioration in conditions — the A628 Woodhead Pass climbs to over 1,500 feet and is one of the most exposed roads in England, frequently closed in winter by snow and ice. Many vehicles that reach the M67 terminus at Mottram are not equipped or prepared for what lies beyond, and breakdown call-outs on the A-roads immediately east of the motorway are directly attributable to the false sense of security that the motorway approach provides. The long-proposed Mottram bypass, which would extend the motorway-standard road through to the A57 link road, has received funding and planning approval but progress has been slow.