M6 southbound reopens after 20-hour closure

The M6 southbound in Staffordshire has reopened after a 20-hour closure that saw frustrated drivers take to social media.

The route closed between junctions 14 Stafford and 13 for Dunston after a crash involving two lorries at about 09:00 GMT on Tuesday.

A man was cut free from the wreckage by firefighters before he was taken to the Royal Stoke University Hospital with potentially serious injuries,

The carriageway reopened shortly after 05:00 on Wednesday following emergency resurfacing, needed after a lorry fuel tank burst open in the crash.

Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, Suzan Holder said she had been stuck at Stafford's M6 southbound services for over eight hours.

The writer and wife of Slade frontman Noddy Holder had been trying to drive from her home near Macclesfield to a garden centre near Wolverhampton to meet her mother.

“I saw the queue and I thought I’ll wait it out at the services – and I’m still here,” she said at 18:45, adding that some people who had tried to leave the services had returned because queues remained so severe.

“You can’t tell me that you can’t get people off the motorway at a junction, after eight hours,” she said.

Other drivers highlighted problems in Stafford itself as motorists attempted to avoid problems on the M6.

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