OVERNIGHT closures to carry out maintenance work on the M5 are to be scrapped until todays motorway fiasco has been fully investigated.

Hundreds of commuters were trapped on the motorway between Worcester and Bromsgrove, some for over ten hours, after planned maintenance work last night went wrong.

The M5 is now open after the gantry that caused the problem was finally removed.

Colin Lowther, Highways England operations manager, said: “We’re very sorry for the disruption drivers have experienced today.

“We have been working hard all day to reopen this section of the M5. Safety comes first, and we had to carry out the complex operation of removing the gantry from the carriageway before we could reopen it.”

Planned full carriageway closures for this evening have been cancelled and no further full overnight closures will take place until the matter has been fully investigated.

The latest details are available on Highways England’s West Midlands Twitter feed at @HighwaysWMIDS or at www.highways.gov.uk/news/breaking-news.