Lane closure ahead of work on damaged M5 carriageway at Worcester

National Highways will put a new road layout in place

Work to change the layout of the M5 in Worcester has been postponed after heavy rain was forecast.

National Highways said it needed to strengthen and repair part of the southbound carriageway, near junction 8, which had deteriorated.

But it said rainfall would prevent road markings being installed, so the work has been delayed until 13 and 14 April.

The road will still close between junctions 6 and 8 overnight on Wednesday and Thursday for other work.

The company said the closure, between 22:00 GMT and 06:00 GMT, would allow workers to carry out barrier and technology repairs.

Work on the new temporary road layout will then take place next month, ahead of permanent repairs in the autumn.

National Highways said ground underneath the hard shoulder and lane one had degraded and needed to be strengthened to make it safe.

Sorting it now stopped more disruption in the future, it said.

"We're incredibly grateful for motorists' patience," Ian Doust, from National Highways, said, after several weeks of survey work to establish what the problem was.

Survey work included digging into the surface of the M5

He added: "The survey work also meant that we could investigate what was happening underneath the ground and in some respects, it's not too different from inspecting the floorboards at home.

"You need to remove parts of the carpet to see what's underneath and that is what we have been doing with the core sampling surveys."