Pedestrian access to motorway via tunnel ramp and ladder
National Highways received 2 coroners' reports about this hazard between 24 Sept 2014 and 16 Jan 2025.
They came from 1 coroner in 2 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 1 time after the first warning.
No published response from National Highways was found for the earlier reports.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“The steps afford open access to the M56 motorway (although their original design purpose is seemingly now redundant);”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ No published response from National Highways was found for this report.
- 10 years 4 months laterClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · higha different coroner
“During the inquest, I heard that [REDACTED] is a pedestrian walkway running underneath the M56 motorway. On the northern side of the motorway (eastbound carriageway side) the entrance to the walkway tunnel is constructed so that the buttress walls form a ramp-like structure which has a shallow gradient topped with a waist-high railing which provides an easily accessible and walkable route from the footpath to the Armco crash barrier bordering the hard shoulder of the eastbound motorway carriage”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ National Highways responded.Response (PDF) ↗
- All reports to National Highways
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2014 → 2025Alexander Thomas10 years 4 months after Jake Johnson · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports highlight structural features that allow pedestrians to reach the motorway carriageway without adequate protection. The earlier report cites steps and damaged fencing; the later report describes a walkway tunnel ramp and a ladder providing similar access.
Jake Johnson · 24 Sept 2014
“The steps afford open access to the M56 motorway (although their original design purpose is seemingly now redundant);”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Alexander Thomas · 16 Jan 2025
“During the inquest, I heard that [REDACTED] is a pedestrian walkway running underneath the M56 motorway. On the northern side of the motorway (eastbound carriageway side) the entrance to the walkway tunnel is constructed so that the buttress walls form a ramp-like structure which has a shallow gradient topped with a waist-high railing which provides an easily accessible and walkable route from the footpath to the Armco crash barrier bordering the hard shoulder of the eastbound motorway carriage”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗
No published response from National Highways was found for this report.
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to National Highways at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 → 2025 | 0.81 | 0.23 | Closely related · 0.90 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
Next
Other chains for National Highways
- Standing water on road leading to hydroplaning5 reports · 2016–2026
- Inadequate drainage leading to water accumulation on carriageway2 reports · 2022–2026
- Missing pedestrian crossing on busy ring road3 reports · 2015–2026
- Raised obstruction on road surface leading to loss of control2 reports · 2016–2025
This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.