Friday 22nd January 1965

Snow ploughs cleared an 18.5-mile stretch of the M1 through Leicestershire from the Lutterworth junction with the A4114 to the A50 at Markfield in readiness for Ministry of Transport representative Tom Fraser to open it at 2.30 pm. The contractors were busy putting the finishing touches to it in the days leading up to the opening. This included giving it a last-minute sweep with brooms by hand. The first seven-and-a-half mile section from Crick to Lutterworth was opened in October 1964. The new section was built under three different contracts totalling about £12 million in a little under two and a half years. Construction of this section used 450,000 tons of lean concrete base and 350,000 tons of bitumous surfacing. Nine million tons of material was excavated. There was also 300,000 tons of concrete used and 8,500 tons of steel used inside the structures.Work on the next section from Markfield to the A6 junction to south of the River Trent opened in the autumn.