A1077(M)

Created in May 2021, and possibly only temporary, the A1077(M) travels in a ruler straight line for just under a mile between two roundabouts near Scunthorpe.

One of the least eventful journeys possible on the UK motorway network, the A1077(M) travels almost exactly due north from Brumby Common roundabout, the new terminus of the M181, to Frodingham Grange Roundabout, where it ends. Its journey is a perfectly straight line and, thanks to the geography of North Lincolnshire, it has no noticeable incline.

An end to end journey at the 50mph limit will take 58 seconds, meaning you could drive the whole motorway, u-turn, and drive it all again in the opposite direction, in the time it takes to listen to "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys. In fact you’d still have 45 seconds of music left, which you could listen to while doing laps of the roundabout at the end.

First opened to traffic in 1978, the A1077(M) started life as the northern part of the M181, itself a diminutive motorway that only just merited a number of its own. The M181 was a very simple spur from the nearby M180, an east-west route across Lincolnshire, to the town of Scunthorpe.

In 2020, North Lincolnshire Council started work on a new junction to serve their planned Lincolnshire Lakes development, inserting a flat roundabout onto the M181 at Brumby Common. It is the first of two planned roundabouts, and other interventions are also planned including signalised pedestrian crossings. As part of the project the M181 has been de-trunked, meaning it's no longer looked after by Highways England and is now the responsibility of the council.

The orphaned section of M181 lying north of the new roundabout was expected to be reclassified as a continuation of the A1077, the road that travels around the west and north of Scunthorpe - but, contrary to all expectations, in May 2021 new signs went up at Brumby Common and Frodingham Grange roundabouts indicating that this stretch of road was still a motorway - despite being disconnected from the motorway network - and was now numbered A1077(M).

Whether this is the settled state of this road, or just an interim stage in the development of Lincolnshire Lakes, isn't clear, but for now at least the UK has a brand new motorway. Or at least - it has a brand new motorway number, for half of what used to be the M181.