Overview
- Gloucestershire Police confirmed Thursday that a van driver in his 30s died and said the northbound M5 reopened before 6am after an overnight investigation.
- The crash near junction 9 for Tewkesbury involved a white Luton van and a Volkswagen Transporter, and police said the Transporter’s occupants were not seriously hurt.
- Northbound lanes between junctions 11 and 9 stayed closed for roughly 17 hours, causing miles of queues and heavy traffic on nearby routes in Gloucester and Cheltenham, including the A417.
- Following Tuesday’s Somerset tanker collision between junctions 22 and 23, crews had to offload about 32,000 litres of diesel from the damaged HGV before recovery, which kept the M5 shut for hours and forced long diversions.
- On Wednesday, a separate M4 vehicle fire in Berkshire left an oil spillage that needed specialist clean-up, and an unrelated M4 crash in Wiltshire led to a 25-year-old’s arrest, underscoring a multi-day cluster of motorway closures and diversions.