M65 motorway
road in Lancashire, England
The M65 is a motorway between Preston and Colne in Lancashire, England. It runs from Bamber Bridge just south of Preston, through major junctions with the M6 and M61 motorways, east past Darwen, Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Brierfield, Nelson and ends at Colne.
History
The M65 was opened in the following sections:
Junctions 10 to 12 (Burnley to Brierfield) in 1981
Junctions 7 to 10 (Hyndburn to Burnley) in 1983
Junctions 12 to 13 (Brierfield to Nelson) in 1983
Junctions 6 to 7 (Whitebirk to Accrington/Hyndburn) in 1984
Junctions 13 to 14 (Nelson to Colne) in 1988
Junctions 1a to 6 M6 to Whitebirk in 1997
The first section of the motorway was opened in 1981, connecting Burnley to Brierfield. Over the years, several extensions were made, the largest being the link from Whitebirk to the M6 and M61 motorways in 1997.
This extension was the scene of a standoff between construction security workers and protesters forming part of the environmental direct action movement. Protesters occupied abandoned buildings in Darwen, parts of Stanworth Woods near Feniscowles and needed to be physically removed.
Junctions 1a to 6 were opened 18 December 1997 by Jack Straw, Home Secretary and Member of Parliament (MP) for Blackburn. The opening ceremony took place on the westbound carriageway beneath junction 5 at Guide with a heavy police presence as protesters threatened to bring a halt to the proceedings.
Much of the 1997 extension was relaid shortly after it opened with a new, quieter tarmac because the amount of road noise had been so great that it prevented birds of prey (mainly owls) from foraging effectively.
Originally, the M65 was planned to go via the town centre of Blackburn.
The public source identifies “M65 motorway” as road in Lancashire, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around motorway, road and Lancashire.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2796161. Authority coordinates are 53.762, -2.423. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1983, 1984 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “M65 motorway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.