The Longton bypass was planned in 1937, and a tender for its construction was advertised in 1939, but due to the outbreak of WWII, it wasn’t opened until 1957.
“The Minister of Transport hereby gives notice that he has informed the Lancashire County Council of his intention to make a Order under sub-section of Section 1 of the Trunk Roads Act, 1936, construct a by-pass to the Liverpool-Preston-Leeds Trunk Road at Longton,” reported the Lancashire Evening Post in 1937.
The Longton bypass — from “Four Lane Ends, Hoole to existing roundabout near Anchor Inn, Hutton” — includes “the provision of dual carriageways, cycle tracks, footpaths and verges,” reported the Formby Times in 1938.
A tender for the road’s construction was issued in June 1939. The land was sterilised, but the road was not built during the war.
The project was revived in 1956, with the bypass opening in October 1957. According to the Halifax Evening Courier the road consisted of “two carriage-ways 24ft. wide [and] … a footway for about two-thirds of its length, and two footways on the remainder.”
The only mention of a cycle track is one “about 200 yards long … provided for the benefit of pupils attending [Hutton] grammar school.”
This does not match the long length of 1930s-style cycle tracks on both sides of the road, so either the newspaper was mistaken, or the cycle track was extended later.
