The Port Talbot bypass opened 50 years ago today.
Originally running from Taibach, Margam to Baglan, east of Briton Ferry, the A48(M) was the first major dual carriageway to be created on stilts and embankments through a built up area.
The cost was £5.06M for just over four miles and that was a record for a road scheme of its day when typical costs were about £250,000 per motorway mile.
Taibach’s famous round chapel was in the way of the new motorway link and was dismantled and rebuilt in a local park.
As the M4 was developed, the bypass, which had substandard curves for a motorway when built, became part of the M4 in the 1970s before the final section to Pont Abraham was completed in the middle of the 1990s.
Much of the design and engineering drawings were done by Sir Owen William partnership, founded by the son of a Welsh grocer in London who made a major contribution to the English motorway network, especially the M1.
