Crashes disrupt M56, M62 and M5 on England's motorways

Motorists faced significant disruption on major motorways across England on Monday, October 20, after separate collisions on the M56, M62 and M5 led to lane closures, long queues and recovery operations.

The worst delays were on the M56 westbound between junction 12, Runcorn, and junction 14, Stanlow, where a crash prompted the temporary stopping of traffic early on Monday morning. Two lanes were initially closed and one remains shut for recovery, causing around 10 miles of congestion and adding roughly two hours to normal journey times, National Highways said. Traffic monitoring system Inrix reported that queues extended back to junction 11 and that eastbound traffic was slowed by onlookers. It was not clear how many vehicles were involved or whether there were any injuries.

Further east, the M62 was partially blocked on the eastbound carriageway near junction 22 for Denshaw after a multivehicle collision that drew police and ambulance crews to the scene. Emergency services and highway workers dealt with a large fuel spillage across the two nearside lanes, forcing traffic to be held and then released into lane three. National Highways said in an update at 3.15pm, "Traffic...