A £40million motorway junction on Bristol's M49, dubbed Britain's most expensive "dead end", has never been used by a single vehicle in the six years since it was built, and now requires repairs before it can even open. The junction was designed to link the motorway network to a distribution hub serving retailers including Amazon, Tesco, Lidl, Next, DHL and The Range, but construction delays and now structural defects have left it isolated and unusable, forcing lorries to instead pass through local villages to reach the business park.

Roads minister Justin Madders told the House of Commons that cracks and loss of topsoil were first spotted on the National Highways-built structure in 2021, just two years after completion, though they were not initially deemed significant. Detailed investigations commissioned in 2025 subsequently uncovered geotechnical issues, and the root cause is still being established with the contractor. Although South Gloucestershire Council scrapped nine planning conditions in 2024 in the hope of finally finishing the link road, and work on it has now begun, Liberal Democrat MP Claire Young branded the situation an "utterly unbelievable" state of affairs, warning that nearby roads are suffering misuse by HGVs, horse riders and families in the meantime.