Need to knowThe motorway was closed until the early hours
M5 traffic backing up after incident on Avonmouth bridge – J20 to J19(Image: Highways England)
A man has been arrested after an incident on the M5 caused massive motorway delaysThe M5 was closed in Bristol for around six hours yesterday evening (Sunday, June 15) and into the early hours of this morning while police officers attended an incident.National Highways advised of five-mile queues at Avonmouth as of 6.45pm, with a southbound closure between junctions 18 and 19 and a northbound closure between junctions 21 and 18. Some drivers reported being at a standstill for two or three hours before the trapped traffic was released.Avon and Somerset Police has now confirmed officers closed the road due to “concerns for the safety of a person” on a bridge. A man was later arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.Traffic was halted while emergency services rushed to the scene. One driver said other road users got out of their vehicles, reporting: “People are clearly getting wind of the fact that we’re going absolutely nowhere anytime soon…Two vehicles are reversing with their hazard lights on up the hard shoulder to the last exit.”Another motorist, writing on the M5 traffic group on Facebook shortly before 7pm, reported they were “still at standstill nearly three hours after [Bristol] airport junction”.Traffic camera images showed the extent of delays. One motorist claimed: “People are walking up and down the hard shoulder, madness, including a bloke walking his dog.”The northbound side eventually reopened by around midnight, according to National Highways. The southbound side had also reopened by 12.30am.An Avon and Somerset Police spokesperson said: “A man in his 30s was arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance. The motorway closure was lifted in the late evening.”
Read the full story as it happened: M5 chaos as ‘police incident’ leads to delays