The A74 was a major trunk road in the United Kingdom, linking Glasgow in Scotland to Carlisle in the North West of England. The road has been largely replaced by the M74 and A74(M) motorways and now only two short stubs remain.

From the 1960s onward, the A74 underwent a process of gradual conversion to motorway standard. The original section of the M74 ran from Uddingston in the south eastern outskirts of Glasgow to Motherwell in the Clyde Valley. The motorway section now extends to Gretna at the Anglo-Scottish border, and was extended northwards in 1992 as far as the Glasgow suburb of Tollcross. The parallel road which was the A74 has been downgraded in two sections as the B7076 and B7078.

Glaswegian section

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The small remnant of the original A74 remains in the south eastern suburbs of Glasgow, between the M74's current northern terminus at Tollcross and the city centre. With the construction of the M74 extension into the city centre by 2010, this will likely result in a downgrading of this section.

The "Cumberland Gap"

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The Cumberland Gap is the six miles of A74 between the northern terminus of the M6 at Carlisle, and the south end of the A74(M) at the Scottish border.

When the M6 was being built, the A74 already existed as a dual carriageway between Carlisle and Glasgow. It was decided therefore rather than build the M6 all the way to the border with Scotland, that it would terminate on the A74, six miles short of the Scottish border.

When the A74 in Scotland was upgraded to three lane motorway standard, however it was only built as far as the border. This left a remnant of the old A74 as a six mile stretch of two lane dual carriageway between two long three lane motorways.

After years of political battles between the English Highways Agency and the Scottish Executive, followed by a lengthy design and public enquiry phase, approval to build a 6 mile long extension to the M6 was granted in March 2006. This will be a mixture of new road and on-line upgrade of the existing A74. It is expected that by 2009, the M6 will terminate at Gretna with segments of the original A74 road being converted to an all-purpose road running alongside. However it has not yet been confirmed if the A74(M) will be renamed M6 as originally planned in the 1990s - an issue which will surely resurface given that the original A74(M) upgrade was equipped with road signs which could be easily converted to show "M6".

Fatal accident

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In December 2004, a serious accident took place on this stretch of road, severing one of the main links between England and Scotland for 29 hours. Local newspaper coverage can be found at Cumberland News.

External links

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• "Cumberland Gap" Press Release, Highways Agency.
• "Cumberland Gap" Chris's British Road Directory.

Roads in the United Kingdom | Roads in Scotland | Roads in England | Transport in Glasgow | Transport in Cumbria