Motoring organisations are warning of travel chaos in coming weeks after the Highways Agency admitted that it has lost a section of the M6.
The stretch of motorway, just north of Stafford was last seen two weeks ago when workmen were trimming the verges and clearing the hard shoulder. Now Agency bosses are red faced after confessing that they don’t know where it’s gone.
“We thought the missing bit of the M6 might have been over there, behind that hedge,” said Highways Agency spokeswoman Lacier Rasp, “but it’s not. We’re hoping it might just turn up. You know, the way the kitchen scissors do when you lose them.”
The RAC is unimpressed with the handling of this embarrassing error. “This is going to be a right pain in the tads,” muttered their Head of Traffic and Travel, Munty Flatwisp, “and it’s not the first time the Highways Agency have done this. We all remember back in 1994 when they removed the A1(M) for cleaning only to put it back in the wrong place, some 70 miles to the right. Very handy for anyone wanting to drive through the North Sea but of tits-all use if you needed to get to Durham, for example.”
The Highways Agency remain optimistic, however. “I’m sure we’ll find it somewhere,” said their spokeswoman, “we’ve got someone looking down the back of the fridge as we speak.”
This story was originally published in September 2001
