The
Dudley Southern By-Pass is a major road located in
DudleyDudley is a large town in the West Midlands county of England. At the 2001 census , the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919, making it the 26th largest settlement in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading, and the largest settlement in the UK without...
, a large town in the
West MidlandsThe West Midlands conurbation is the name given to the large conurbation that includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Solihull, Stourbridge, Halesowen in the English West Midlands....
of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
It was first proposed in 1987 due to growing traffic congestion in Dudley town centre, but the go-ahead was not given until 1993, with preliminary work beginning in 1994 with the clearance of land to make way for the new road, with a targeted completion date of 1998.
The clearance scheme to make way for the by-pass saw the demolition of two houses and the bus garage on Birmingham Road, a public house on Hall Street, Goodyear's factory on Oakeywell Street, and two houses on Stourbridge Road.
The Dudley Southern By-Pass was opened on 15 October 1999. It runs from
Castle Gate island to
Stourbridge Road in the Holly Hall area of the town, and forms part of the A461 road between
StourbridgeStourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...
and
LichfieldLichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...
.
The road became
Duncan EdwardsDuncan Edwards was an English footballer who played for Manchester United and the England national team. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young United team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid 1950s, and one of eight players who died as a result of the Munich air disaster.Born in Dudley,...
Way in 2008, in memory of the local football legend who died in 1958 as a result of injuries sustained in the
Munich air disasterThe Munich air disaster occurred on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes",...
.